Fallen From Grace
by EdwardsLily
Summary: Now reposted under a new name. Please see the last chapter for explanations. Thank you.
1. Plans Made to Be Broken

**Prologue**

There were only three people left to ask who would definitively say that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named hadn't won. Of course, they had their little handful of supporters – any resistance group always did – but they were easy to ignore. Easier, still, was getting rid of them. They were just like little dominoes. One push… and they all toppled.

For all technical purposes, though, the Dark Lord had won the war. His Death Eaters had infiltrated the Ministry, taken over the Daily Prophet, and made themselves in charge of the rest of the Wizarding World. With Lucius Malfoy as the minister of Magic, very few people dared to try to fight back.

Of course, there was the exception of those three – the ones who had evaded, blocked, and irritated the Dark Lord at every turn. Harry Potter, Ronald Weasley, and Hermione Granger. But there were only three of them. Three against the masses. And none of the rest of the Wizarding World was willing to help them. Fear kept them pinned down too strongly.

Three of them against the many. And Lucius Malfoy knew exactly how to destroy them.

For all their grandeur, the Dark Lord's chambers were dark and cold. Lucius knelt at the foot of a tall, marble chair that someone more foolish might call a throne. Black robes swept down from the top of the high white seat, pooling on the floor. A lesser man than Lucius might have wanted to kneel on them, avoid having to kneel on the hard stone floor. But Lucius knelt without flinching. From the very top, piercing red eyes looked down on him, glinting in an expressionless white face. A pale hand rose.

"At ease, Lucius," said a voice, the cold, high voice that so matched the room, and that so matched the man.

Lucius raised his head to look up into the face of his master. "My Lord."

"I do hope that it's something worthwhile this time, Lucius," Voldemort sighed, waving his hand airily at the girl who stood in the corner. She stepped forward, trembling, and fell to her knees before him. "Drink," he said sharply.

"Yes, My Lord," she said, so quietly that Lucius could barely hear her. She stumbled to her feet, and under her tangled hair and dirty clothes, he thought he recognized her face.

"Penelope Clearwater?" he said, once she had stumbled away.

"Mudblood," the Dark Lord hissed dismissively.

Lucius frowned a little at her condition. He preferred his own slaves clean and well-dressed, so that they were easier on the eye. But he was in no place to criticize his master.

"Something wrong?"

"No, My Lord. Not at all."

A sigh. It was just a hiss of air, like a deflating balloon. "Why are you here, Lucius?"

"The Order, My Lord. I believe I have found the solution."

"The Order of the Phoenix is _dead_!" Voldemort screeched, so loudly and so suddenly that Penelope Clearwater who had just come back in, dropped the tray she was holding with a clatter. A golden goblet fell to the floor and bounced, clanging. Dark red wine moved across the parquet floor in waves, pouring out like blood. It stained the edges of Lucius' robes, but he did not flinch. He was not allowed to show weakness here.

"I know that, My Lord," he said hastily, his smooth voice covering the pounding of his heart. "All except for –"

Voldemort stood, his already impressive height added to the altitude of the chair he sat upon making him tower over Lucius, as his face quivered with rage. "I have asked you, have I not? You are never to say that name again. There will be _no_ mention of _him_ in my presence lest I begin the conversation. You, of all people, should know this."

"My Lord –" Lucius scrambled to his feet, knowing that he was unofficially allowed to do this in the case of a shouting match. "My Lord, please. It has nothing to do with the boy. It is about the Mudblood."

Voldemort stopped screeching and looked down at him with a skeptically raised eyebrow. "Go on," he said boredly, sitting back down.

Lord Malfoy remained standing, albeit shakily. "My Lord, Hermione Granger is everything to that group. While He-Who-Is-Not-To-Be-Named is the brawn, and the Weasley brat is the one with sheer dumb luck, Hermione Granger is the brains behind their resistance. I've seen the way they operate. Everything they do is a plan of hers. Without her, they would be lost."

"Go on."

"If we could separate her from the group, we would have a better chance of quashing their resistance. It would not be difficult – there are few protecting her, now."

"And what," Voldemort said, almost amused, "would you propose doing with the Mudblood, once you had her?"

Lucius' pale skin flushed a deep red over his aristocratic cheekbones. The Dark Lord came close to smiling, though it was a frightening thing to behold.

"Nothing more than I expected from you, my slippery friend."

"My Lord," he stammered feebly. "It would only be putting her into her place. The Mudbloods belong below us, under us. We must rule them in any way we can."

"I would think that you would have been taught a lesson when I killed Narcissa," Voldemort said, not threateningly. "You cannot be controlled around women, can you Lucius?"

More red, staining that smooth, white skin.

"And you would prefer this to killing her, to eradicating the scum?"

"She has unparalleled skills. It would be a pity to lose her."

The Master laughed, and the sound sent shivers down the Servant's spine. "Oh, Lucius. You do think of everything, every way to get around me."

"Thank you."

"Very well. We will try this plan of yours. And if it should not work?"

Lucius swallowed hard. "If it does not work to stop the resistance, as I am sure that it will, we can target the next person closest to the boy. The Weasley spawn. Without him, I am sure that the boy will be completely lost."

"And whose whore would the blood traitor become?" Voldemort asked, amused.

"My Lord knows that such plans are only for him to make," he said humbly, bowing his head again. "Although, I know that Bellatrix Lestrange is feeling restless now that you have Rodolphus incapacitated. She would love to have a new toy, and if I may be so bold to suggest this, I do believe that she deserves it after her behavior at Grimmauld Place."

"Very well." A high, cold laugh, although it was not an unpleasant one. "You are dismissed, Lucius. I assume that you would prefer to be there in the procuring of the girl?"

"My Lord always knows best."

"I will call you when you are needed."

"Yes, Master."

"Dismissed." Voldemort snapped his fingers for the Clearwater bitch to come back, and Lucius rose to his feet, his body aching from kneeling for so long. He bowed quickly, and left the room as fast as he could without making it seem like he was running.

"Well?" Bellatrix Lestrange stood at the door, waiting for him, her eyes glinting with anticipation.

"The Dark Lord will think over the matter," Lucius said shortly, holding out his arm for his sister-in-law to take. He had no choice to house her with him, now that her husband was gone and his wife was dead. The Malfoy family had fallen far down, as had the House of Black. It was only expected that they group together, although he loathed her company.

"Ah! Lucius. You will yet do our family honor." She cackled as they climbed the steep steps that led back up into natural light. "The Dark Lord will be proud of you, yet. And did you ask about the blood traitor's spawn?"

Why she would want anyone red-headed with freckles was beyond him. He personally found the Weasley family disgusting. "He said he would consider it, Bella," he said gently, pushing the door open.

"The Dark Lord is indebted to us, Lucius," Bellatrix breathed, her airy words floating across his neck as she leaned in to him. "He cannot forget all that we have done for him in the past. He owes us this much."

"It is not our place to expect anything at all from him," Lucius snapped, pushing her away from him but keeping a firm grip on her arm. "We have betrayed his confidence more than once, Bella, and he does well to punish us for what we have done."

She pouted at him. "You would know, Lucius. You who did not dare to go to prison for him. You who made yourself the lapdog of Cornelius Fudge, and who ate out of Albus Dumbledore's hands!"

He kept his face in a smooth mask. "Let us go home, Bellatrix, and speak of this no more. Our Master will call us when we are needed, and we can expect no more of him than that."

The city of London had changed since Voldemort's takeover. The skies were cold and grey. Chilly, putrid air leaked out of the dark alleys where the Dementors stood, waiting for the next blood traitor victim to walk by. People rarely went into the streets now, too afraid of what waited for them outside their doors.

Across the town from where Lucius and Bellatrix stood, their robes whipping in the wind, three people scurried about 12 Grimmauld Place, the lights in the windows glowing, and piles of parchment covering every flat surface. Plans, plans. Always plans.

Plans were made to be broken.


	2. The Minister's Mistress

**Hello, all. I have to say I'm very pleased by the positive response to the first chapter. A huge shout-out especially to Hymnophile, who leaves me the loveliest reviews and has agreed to be my beta. While I was waiting for her to reply to my latest PM I outlined and wrote this chapter and, as she will learn is a common trait in me, got very excited about it. So excited that I edited it myself and am now posting it. This won't become a habit – I'm sure she will help me greatly. But as we don't yet have a system worked out… this will have to do. Hymnophile, please forgive me. **

**I do NOT always update this fast' this is just my "OMG new fic" excitement phase. Thank you all for reading.

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**Chapter One**

**The Minister's Mistress?**

Hermione was alone again, but she didn't honestly mind that much. The world was in such a mess just then that a little alone time was good for her. As much as she loved Harry and Ron – especially Ron – she needed her time to think, to process things.

Things had changed since sixth year, and not the way they'd meant them to. They'd wanted to slip quietly out of school, for everyone else's life to go on as it was before while the three of them went off in search of the Horcruxes. It didn't quite happen that way.

After Dumbledore's death, the Wizarding World had no clear leader. The Board of Governors voted unanimously that Minerva McGonagall should stay on as Headmistress of Hogwarts – it was easier for them to do now that Lucius Malfoy was off the committee. Though Pius Thickness had died at the Battle of Hogwarts, there had been enough Death Eater infiltration of the Ministry already that Lucius Malfoy had been named the Minister of Magic. Of course, Voldemort ran the show from backstage, and everyone knew it, but it all amounted to the same thing: the Ministry of Magic could no longer be trusted.

The Order had fallen, too. With a Malfoy in power, it was too easy for the Death Eaters to round up most of The Order's members. Most were dead, and those who weren't were in prison.

Hermione made herself a cup of tea and sighed. What she wouldn't give to have them back – any of them! Especially the Weasleys. Poor Ron was not taking it well that his mother and George were in prison. Or that his father, Percy, Fred, and Bill were dead. Charlie was on the run, and Ginny was in America with Neville and Luna, recruiting new members where the darkness hadn't quite reached all the way.

But it didn't have to be a Weasley. Anyone– especially an adult who knew what he was doing – would have been more than welcome just then. It was really down to the three of them, because anyone who wasn't in prison or dead were all hiding. It was too much, too hard. They couldn't handle it all alone, she knew that. But she was far from willing to give up.

Ron and Harry were away that day on a mission to Surrey. Moody had sent them word that he'd heard about a Muggle attack there, and the boys had taken off at once. She didn't mind being left alone anymore. It was routine. Someone had to stay behind to watch over Headquarters – especially in case someone tried to contact them.

Someone like Severus Snape. She took a long, deep drink of her tea and sighed. They knew now that Severus was innocent. It had been all over the papers – his storming out of the Ministry with a swarm of Death Eaters on his tail. He'd only managed to contact Harry once, letting him know why he'd killed Dumbledore, but he'd been silent ever since. They didn't even know if he was still alive.

But surely, Severus would know what to do! It was driving her crazy. He'd been working more closely with Dumbledore than any of the rest of the put together. He would have to have a plan! Or, at least, some insight.

She let her eyes wander around the kitchen to the table, where that day's Daily Prophet sat. The headline made her stomach churn. "Malfoy Declares War on Muggle-Borns." Right there, in big, bold letters. Of course. Muggle-Borns. Maybe it was just as well that she was hiding here. She knew of too many people – friends, Hogwarts students, and Order members – who'd been captured for their blood status and hadn't been seen since. She flipped over the paper so that she wouldn't have to look at Lucius Malfoy's smug face smiling up at her anymore.

She heard voices upstairs and her heart skipped a beat. Harry and Ron couldn't be back already, could they? Who, then? She reached for her wand, and tried to tell herself that she was being silly. The house was under all the protection that the Ministry could give – they'd managed to get special wards before the Ministry had fallen. Maybe an Order member… someone who had escaped from a Death Eaters.

A gentle breeze brushed her face and she heard a triumphant woman's shout from upstairs. "Down there!" Bellatrix Lestrange crowed. "And she's alone!"

"I told you she would be, didn't I?" Lucius Malfoy sounded distinctly annoyed. "Bellatrix, please realize that I do in fact know what I am doing."

Hermione's mind raced as she glanced around the kitchen for a hiding place, her fingers curling automatically tighter around her wand. How could they get in here? They had the strongest protection available… The Ministry.

Oh god. The Ministry. How could she have been so _stupid_? Of course. When the Ministry fell, any protection on the house would have died. They'd been too busy focusing on other things to think about that. And there were so many prisoners who could have broken the Fidelius Charm under torture… Oh god. They were so stupid!

She supposed that hiding under a table wasn't very dignified. If she was going to go down, they'd have to drag her down kicking and screaming. She crouched at the foot of the stairs, wishing she hadn't been in the basement. She might have had more places to run.

Footsteps echoed on the steep, stone steps. She saw a too-shiny man's shoe, and heard the swishing of expensive robes. And a woman's hushed voice, and a man shushing her. She muttered a quick shield spell and glanced around the room quickly, noting all possible crevices and hiding places.

"Granger," said a silky voice. An instinctive shiver ran down her spine. The last time she'd heard that voice, she'd been in the Department of Mysteries, watching the world crumble around her. She could almost hear the breaking of glass, and the voices of a thousand smashed prophecies.

"Malfoy." She kept her voice surprisingly steady, and her hand went out behind her to grab onto the table for support. Why couldn't Harry still be here? Harry would know what to do. Harry always kept his head around Death Eaters. Even the ones who wanted to murder him.

"Alone?" the woman crooned, appearing behind her brother-in-law. She pouted at Hermione, her eyes huge. "Did they leave you all alone again?"

Hermione wasn't a particularly vengeful person, but hatred curled in the pit of her stomach. Bellatrix Lestrange. She'd killed Sirius. She'd been there when Dumbledore died. More recently, she slaughtered Tonks and tortured Bill Weasley to death.

"I suppose you sent people to Surrey?" she said coldly, her eyes flicking between Lucius and Bellatrix. They both had their wands out, too, but casually. Both seemed relaxed. Too relaxed. They would have to have a plan. To distract her, maybe? One of them would divert her attention while the other did the deed and killed her. Or perhaps they would both attack at the same time. She would have to watch their stances to see if they both tensed suddenly. Maybe they were in the front as a diversion while someone else snuck around the back? But the rest of the kitchen was empty. Hypothetically.

_Homenum Revelio_, she thought desperately. But the only life forms in the room were her, Lucius, and Bellatrix. Good. She didn't have to deal with an attack from the behind. Of course, one of them could sneak around her… Her brain spat ridiculous ideas at her, each one less plausible than the last. Maybe they were just going to duel her outright. Yes, that would make sense.

"Surrey?" Lucius raised a carefully plucked eyebrow with a perfectly innocent expression. "I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about."

"Hmm." Hermione nodded absently, watching Bellatrix more closely. The woman's fingers were shifting on her wand, pressing together more firmly.

She had her wand up before Bellatrix could shout her spell, and she deflected it back easily. Bellatrix fell to the ground, hit by her own curse. Hermione wanted to grin in triumph but she recognized that it had been a distraction when she felt someone moving behind her – she whirled and her hair hit a furious Lucius Malfoy in the face. She sliced her wand through the air and he bore down on her, his own wand flashing with nonverbal spells that came almost too fast for her to block.

She ducked and rolled under the table, which started burning when a curse meant for her hit the Daily Prophet. As she came back to her feet, she noticed with pleasure that the headline she'd so detested was burning…

"Crucio!" Bellatrix screamed.

Hermione fell to the ground again and crawled into the corner behind a huge, oak cabinet.

"Fool!" Lucius roared. "The point is to knock her out, not hurt her. Bellatrix I swear to god if you harm her…"

"Get over yourself, Lucius," she sneered. "Just because _you_ want the Mudblood doesn't mean we all care what happens to her. She's still valuable if she's a little bruised. It might even make things better, wouldn't it? You and your crazy… I remember how you were with Narcissa –"

"SHUT UP ABOUT NARCISSA!"

Hermione frowned. Unhurt? Since when did the Death Eaters care what happened to her? She was just a filthy Mudbloo –

A jet of red light shot past her, barely missing her cheek, and left a crater in the wall. She jumped to her feet and drew her wand but she realized they'd cornered her.

She fought hard, she fought bravely. She used every spell in her arsenal, she stopped trying to use good spells and she tried to Cruciartus Bellatrix while she held Malfoy off with a full-body bind, but Bellatrix managed to duck and Malfoy fought it off and they both advanced on her…

And then Hermione had to realize, had to admit, that she was losing. She'd known it from the beginning. She was a good fighter. She was at least as good as Ron and almost as good as Harry, but she was fighting two grown Death Eaters, who had been trained extensively in the Dark Arts by Voldemort himself. And she didn't have backup, so when they stunned her she fell and didn't have anyone to distract them before she woke up.

Yes, she fell. She fell in a graceful arch, her hand going limp as she dropped her wand. It wasn't a crumpling, but a swoon, and Lucius Malfoy scooped her up in his arms before she could hit the ground. Bellatrix picked up the wand after a sharp glare, and the three of them left Grimmauld Place silently.

***

_Harry, Ron_

_I've gone out for a quick walk. Back in a few. Don't worry, I'm fine._

_~Hermione_

"Harry?" Ron called. "Harry, is Hermione upstairs with you?"

"No, I thought she was downstairs!" Harry called back. "Why do you ask?"

Ron's heart was in his throat. "Harry, I think something's wrong. She's not here. Come look."

Harry thundered down the stairs to where Ron stood in the front hall, holding a bit of parchment between his trembling fingers. He snatched it up and recognized Hermione's handwriting at once. "A walk?" he repeated dumbly. "Since when does Hermione leave the house when no one else is here?"

"That's what I'm wondering," Ron said shakily, glaring at the piece of parchment like it had committed some horrible crime against him. "She's more responsible than that. She wouldn't leave the house unattended, just in case Snape or Ginny called."

Harry curled his hand into a fist around the paper. "Something's wrong, Ron. I think Hermione's missing."

They searched the house up and down. They went around the neighborhood to see if maybe she really _had_ needed a breath of air. They asked all the neighbors if they'd seen a bushy-haired know-it-all walking around the block.

But after five hours of searching, it seemed as if, for all intensive purposes, Hermione Granger really had gone missing.

***

Things without Hermione were very different from they were used to. She'd been the brains behind everything they did, the planner, the plotter. They still kept their contacts watching, their ears and eyes on the Death Eaters. They still lurked around the Daily Prophet, and stalked the Ministry of Magic. They kept up their search for Horcruxes. But nothing felt right anymore. They didn't do it nearly as neatly as they did when they had her planning things. And they lacked the spirit.

Neither of them was willing to say it aloud, but they were worried for her. Very worried. For two weeks, they hadn't heard a word. It would make sense for the Death Eaters to target her – not only was she working with the resitance, but she was a Mudblood. But surely there would have been news of her capture, or of her death.

Nothing.

Not for two, long weeks.

And then, exactly two Mondays after Hermione's disappearance, an owl came with the most interesting Daily Prophet that either of them had read in a very long time. It was Ron who met the bird, and who took the paper from her. He paid the subscription fee and walked inside, still sleepy and in his pajamas.

Harry was making coffee down in the kitchen when Ron came in. The redhead sat down and unrolled the paper, reaching gratefully for the mug that Harry gave him –

– And spat the coffee out immediately.

"What, isn't it good enough for you?" Harry said, annoyed, his head poking into the refrigerator as he looked for another carton of eggs.

"Blimey, Harry." Ron wiped off his face and spread the paper on the table. "Come here."

Harry sighed and came over. "What? Prophet bungle something up agai…"He trailed off as his eyes fell first on the headline, then on the picture below it. "Oh."

"Oh," Ron echoed softly.

"That's her, isn't it?"

"Better bloody not be."

Harry leaned forward, gripping the table to keep from pitching on his face. "'The Minister's Mistress?'" he quoted softly. "Ron, look at the picture. I'm sorry, mate, but that's her."

"It can't be." Ron shoved his chair away from the table and stormed back upstairs. Harry took his vacated seat and looked at the picture more closely.

Lucius Malfoy was standing on the front steps of his manor, wearing dark dress robes and turning his back to the camera. Instead of smiling at the photographers, he had his hand to the door, reaching out for the hand of a young woman. She, too, wore dress robes – hers of a deep green – but they were indecently low cut and far too tight. She was hiding her face, and Harry could see that her bushy hair was tied up in an elaborate knot at the back of her head. He'd never seen Hermione wear such high heels, nor paint her nails so brightly.

Bellatrix Lestrange stood behind her in the doorway, dressed to match Lucius, her face gloating as she poked the green-robed witch in the side with her wand. As Harry watched the image, Lucius glared sharply at his sister-in-law and took the green-robed witch's hand. She accepted it reluctantly, and he turned her to face the cameras. Hermione.

But Hermione hated makeup, and here she was, wearing more perfectly done, heavily applied makeup than Harry had ever seen on anyone decent.

She looked pained to walk down the steps, arm-in-arm with Lucius Malfoy, wearing Slytherin Green, but she kept her head high as he led her through the crowd of photographers and into a waiting vehicle.

Harry pushed the paper away, feeling nauseous, but not before he saw the caption under the photograph.

"Lucius Malfoy, Bellatrix Lestrange, and Hermione Granger seen leaving the Malfoy Manor for a dinner at the home of Theodore Nott, Head of the Department of International Cooperation."

Ron was going to throw a fit.

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**I understand that I have 11 people so far who have added me to their story alerts. Thank you all so much! I challenge you: can I get 11 reviews, too? You make me a very happy author.**


	3. Ungrateful

**HUGE thanks to Hymnophile, whose tweaking and commenting make me extremely happy. I feel like this chapter is finally everything you all deserve. Round of applause for her, please. The rating of this HAS changed, but it's thematic rating only. There will be no lemons. I apologize for the… different tone of the chapter. This was really hard for me to write but I had to get it out there. This will probably be the last chapter that comes this close to a lemon. Also, it seems right now like this is Lucius/Hermione, but it's not. I promise it's Dramione. Just wait for it a bit. Now the exposition's over, we can really get into the plot in the next chapter. Hope to see you all there.**

**Enjoy!

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Life turned into a horrible routine. Stop, pose, look pretty. Kiss Lord Malfoy lightly and duck her head when he looked at her. She had to wear the horrible, nearly indecent robes that he and Bellatrix laid out for her every morning, and she had to let Malfoy's house elves treat her like a queen.

Hermione hated it.

When he took her out, a trophy hanging on his arm, she was forced to bear the staring of his Death Eater friends, all of whom cackled at The Mudblood, congratulated Lucius on taming something so dirty. She had to sit and take it in silence while Lucius gloated, flaunting her in front of cameras and crowds alike. Lucius _fucking _Malfoy. The great tamer of mudbloods. And how fitting that he should take the crowning jewel from himself – treat the scum like scum.

She prayed that, with so much press, Harry and Ron would at least know where she was. She didn't expect them to come rescue her – it was an irrational hope, to think that Harry and Ron could somehow plot a break in of the Malfoy Manor by themselves – but she wanted them to know that she was safe and relatively unharmed.

Hermione was screaming again. She'd been reckless that day, trying to steal Bellatrix's owl to send a message off to her friends. Lucius accused her of trying to send a plea for help, but she was actually doing quite the opposite. She wanted to tell them, to let them know, that coming after her was their last priority. They needed to focus on the Horcruxes. They needed to keep their minds on the bigger picture.

She was too far gone to think about the bigger picture now. Tied to the king sized bed, she struggled under a long, lanky man whose silver hair formed a curtain around them, hiding the lust that filled his heavy-lidded eyes, blocking view of her lips, swollen from his kisses. She whimpered. It was her punishment for her behavior.

Someone standing outside the door of her chambers might have thought that Lucius was torturing her. Her screams echoed off the empty stone walls, reverberating in the vacant hallways that seemed to stretch for miles. He'd put her in the most isolated corner of the Manor, closest to the library. It suited her. But there was no one there to hear her scream.

She screamed, and he grunted, moaning, his pale chest heaving as he moved over her. He wasn't hurting her at all. Oh, no. Far from that. Lucius never hurt her. He said that she was too valuable for that. Instead, he spent hours with her locked up in her rooms as he memorized her body, learning every curve of a joint and every divot of a dimple, until his fingers could trace the easiest paths over her skin to make her beg for his mercy.

Lucius never hurt her. He just liked listening to her grovel, liked the sight of her kneeling before him, promising anything to him in exchange for release. He had his ways of putting her into her place, and they were ways that suited him just right.

He held her close afterwards, drying her tears on his fine silk robes. He stayed with her until she fell asleep, and she wished that he wouldn't. It was mortifying enough that she had to do that with him, but to have to listen to him whisper sweet nothings in her ear, listen to him apologize… That just made it a million times worse.

When Hermione woke that morning, she found that she was alone in bed. In Lucius' place was a beautiful, long-stemmed red rose. She sat up, embarrassed heat flooding her body when she woke up, not for the first time, to feel her bare skin pressing against the smooth linen sheets, and reached out for the note that was attached to the rose.

_Granger. I apologize for causing you any discomfort last night. I do hope that your lesson was well learned. You will dine with me tonight at 6 o'clock, as per usual. I do not expect anything to be different._

She crumpled the note up in her fist. She still didn't understand his motives. Was he trying to be nice to her? Was he trying to lure her into a false sense of security? All she'd learned at this point was that he seemed to go out of his way to make sure that she was comfortable and well treated.

If it weren't for Lucius Malfoy and Bellatrix Lestrange, she had a nice life enough here. They'd given her a suite of rooms near the library, to which she had unlimited access. The Malfoy library was huge – almost larger than the Hogwarts library, and filled with rare books that she could only dream of. She was disappointed to find that most of them were full of dark magic, or written in languages she didn't understand, but some of the books were beyond anything she could have imagined. She wore pretty clothes, although Hermione had never been picky about her wardrobe, and was fed fine food. She hated the fact that the house elves did everything here – she felt useless not being able to tidy up or make a cup of tea. Instead, they all treated her like the sort of royalty that the Malfoy family was, and it made her sick.

It wasn't enough just to ball up the note. She ripped the head off the rose and crushed it between her fingers, letting the petals fall to the floor.

The door opened without warning – no one here ever knocked. Bellatrix sashayed in, carrying a pile of clothes. She scowled at Hermione, her lips curling at her nudity.

"Today's outfit," she said boredly, dumping them at the foot of the bed. "Just like you to have a lie in the morning, isn't it? I thought Lucius was supposed to be teaching you something about discipline."

A muscle twitched in Hermione's jaw, and she pulled the blankets up higher to her neck, but she said nothing.

"Serves you right," Bellatrix mumbled, going over to the window and throwing the curtains open. "Don't know what the bloody hell you were thinking, trying to take _my_ owl. If I could get my hands on you, you'd regret the day you were born. But Lucius wants to protect his _pet_." She sneered and turned around. "What are you waiting for? Up! Get dressed. You've slept enough today Mudblood. Get up."

Hermione tried simultaneously to pull the blankets up with her and keep the crushed rose petals hidden. As much as Bellatrix hated Lucius, she hated it more when Hermione disrespected Lucius. But it was a tricky balancing act to keep herself and the petals covered, and Bellatrix's eyes fell to the petals on the floor instantly. Her lips curled into a sneer.

"I see."

Hermione reached a hand out for her clothes, and Bellatrix smacked it away, her eyes glittering with malice.

"You're an ungrateful little bitch, you know that?"

She still held her tongue. Speaking would only make Bellatrix angrier.

"Lucius gives you everything he has, Granger. Anything you want is yours. And this… this is how you repay him? He shouldn't have let your filthy blood into the house, not alone take you to his bed. Why can't you appreciate what the man has done for you?"

_The man has done nothing for me._

"You don't deserve him," Bellatrix raged. "You never deserved him. He was happy with Narcissa, you know. But you and your little _friends _went and ruined everything for him. He's being nicer to you than you deserve. And you pounce around like the world is your oyster here, like you can help yourself to anything."

"I would hardly say that I live a perfect life here," Hermione said coldly.

"No. You don't. Because you insist on breaking Lucius' rules. If you did as he told you for once you could be the happiest person in this house."

She shrugged. "May I please have my clothes?"

Bellatrix fingered her wand.

"If you don't give me my clothes, Lucius will be unhappy with you," Hermione sighed.

Something inside the older woman seemed to snap, and she stormed out of the room, her robes billowing behind her. Hermione watched her go gloomily. Yes. Lucius may have been bad, but Bellatrix was even worse. She made it very clear that if she had her way, Hermione wouldn't be in the house. She wouldn't be Lucius' whore. Hermione would be dead. Secretly, she agreed, but she didn't need someone else making it all so unpleasant for her.

She spent the day in the library, and arrived in the dining room at exactly six o'clock. The room was otherwise empty, and she stood uneasily behind her chair. Lord Malfoy was never late for an engagement. There was food on the table, but no house elves in the room. Something must have happened.

After she'd stood and waited for five minutes, Lucius flooded into the room, his robes and his hair swirling tempestuously with the anger in his gait. His silver eyes flashed, and Hermione cringed back at the expression on his noble face.

He slowed slightly when he saw her standing here, cringing away from him, and sighed, relaxing. "Granger."

Bile rose in her throat. So he wanted to pretend that everything was normal, did he? She bowed forward slightly, hating the low-cut robes that would give him an ample view of her cleavage every time she bent forward to him in an expression of her _submissiveness_. "My Lord."

He took her hand and she rose, standing up on her tiptoes to kiss his lips lightly. His breath ghosted across her neck, and she shivered when he released her.

"Is everything quite alright?" she asked, more for her own safety than out of actual concern for him.

He sat, and indicated that she should sit too. "Not so long as my _sister-in-law_ is in this household."

Hermione just looked at him.

"You should have come to me," he said, taking a deep drink from his golden goblet. "I told you to tell me when she bothers you."

"It was barely anything," she said meekly, looking down at her plate. She'd been ravenous before, but now she'd lost her appetite.

"If it hadn't been for the elf, Bellatrix might have gotten away with it. Is that really alright with you, Granger?"

"Which elf?" Hermione asked hesitantly.

Lucius looked reluctant to acknowledge the elves as sentient creatures with names. "Calico," he said finally.

She nodded. Calico had, in a sense, adopted her. "Tell her I say thank you."

Lucius' face twisted into a look of disgust_._

She took a deep breath. "I hope that Bellatrix is alright."

"Bellatrix got what was a long time in coming."

"Oh."

They ate in silence for a few minutes. Dinner at the Manor was always a sordid affair full of foods that were too fine and wines that were too rich. She ate sparingly, while Lucius ate with gusto. It sickened her.

"Aren't you hungry, Granger?" he finally asked, as his spoon scraped the bottom of his soup bowl. Her own food was barely touched.

She took a tiny bite of bread and tried to smile at him, and he watched her with unfathomable eyes.

"I won't lie and say that I don't understand _why_ Bellatrix lost her temper with you," he said lightly. "You are an ungrateful bitch, aren't you?"

Irritation prickled through her. She really did want to keep her temper, and avoid a repeat of last night, but they were honestly so _stupid_ sometimes. They both knew perfectly well that this was neither the life she was used to living, nor the life she wanted to live. They both knew this was unpleasant for her, and they both insisted that she be perfectly happy about it.

"I'm sure I have no idea what you are talking about, My Lord," she said softly.

"I won't repeat Bellatrix's tirade, but I am sure that you know perfectly well what I mean. From now on, you will take what is given to you without complaint. Please do eat your food. I'm sure the _house elves_ worked hard to prepare it for you."

Though her stomach churned, she sat obediently at the table and ate every last crumb, while he watched her with those unsettling eyes.

Hermione was screaming again. She didn't want to; she tried to keep her lips pressed shut, but his skillful hands moved across her body so that she couldn't keep the moans in any longer. It wasn't even punishment for her this time. She'd been "good" all day, and this was her "reward." She would rather take this as a punishment, instead of having to view it as a gift.

She didn't argue, though, and even if she had the guts to try, she wouldn't have been able to. Not the way that Lucius caught her mouth in his, not the way he made her breathless with his feather light touches.

_From now on, you will take what is given to you without complaint._ Well, she certainly wasn't complaining. It wasn't like the last time. He was gentle with her, almost playful. This time it was not about making her suffer, it was about filling her, pleasing her. The great Lord Malfoy _almost_ put his own needs last. And she was certainly satisfied.

When they were both done, he tried to hold her close again, but she felt smothered under the blankets and his arms. Not bothering to apologize, she pushed him away and sat up, her head spinning.

"Hermione?" he asked. He used her first name when he was like this, still dazed from their behaviors. She hated that his voice was husky.

The sound of her name on his tongue brought her to the breaking point. She shoved out of bed and bolted for the bathroom, vomit rising to her lips in frightening quantities. She was disgusted with herself, by what she had done, and that she had the nerve to _enjoy _it. She was sick of it all. Sick of Lucius _fucking_ Malfoy acting like he was giving her the greatest gift in the world by gracing her with his presence. She was sick of enduring Bellatrix's taunting by day, and Malfoy's teasing by night. She was sick of being worshiped by house elves, sick of worrying about her friends. She was sick, sick, sick, so sick of it all.

The bathroom door creaked open and Lucius slipped in, still naked, his face tight with worry. But she didn't look up to see his face. She just felt his hands, pulling her hair back, and rubbing her shoulders soothingly. He murmured nonsense to her as she sobbed between heaves, her whole body shaking, and when it was over, he pulled her against his chest, holding her tightly as she cried.

They sat together on the cold, hard tile of the bathroom floor for a good ten minutes, and when her breathing started returning to normal and her eyes dried, he pulled her to her feet wordlessly and led her back into the bedroom – his, this time.

"I'm sorry," she rasped, when he pulled the covers up over her.

He said nothing, his eyes hard and unwilling to meet hers. She couldn't tell if he was angry when he slipped into bed beside her and turned out the lights.

When Hermione woke up, she was surprised to find the two of them still in his bed. He was dressed, now, sitting up on his side and playing with her hair absently, looking at the wall across from him with empty eyes. She lay for a long time without moving, almost enjoying the gentleness of his actions. It had been a long time since someone had touched her like this, not in anger, not in lust, but in gentle companionship. Finally, she could not hold still any longer, and she rolled over to look up and him and try to gauge the expression on his face.

He pulled his hand back immediately, and glanced down at her sharply. "You're awake."

"I am." Remembering with a pang of homesickness all that Moody had taught them about self-defense before he had gone on the run, she let her senses explore the surroundings. It wasn't every morning that she woke up with Malfoy still beside her, and it unsettled her. He _seemed_ to be the only other one in the room. Sunlight streamed in from the windows – the curtain had been drawn back already. She was still naked under the covers, but he hadn't pulled them down so she at least had protection from his wandering gaze. She wasn't too warm, and she was a bit too comfortable and relaxed for her taste.

Lucius looked broodingly at his hand, and she wondered if she was still imagining it tangled in her hair. She propped herself up on one arm carefully, keeping the blanket draped over her and wondering if this would make him angry. He didn't seem to notice.

"Is there something troubling you, My Lord?" she finally said, when it became clear that he wasn't going to speak to her on his own.

"I –" He frowned at her, like he'd forgotten that she was still there.

She held very still, unused to this behavior in him. She could deal with anger or manhandling – she'd had more than enough experience with the two – but she didn't recognize this sullen, pensive Lucius Malfoy. He'd never let his walls down this much.

"Hermione," he said hesitantly. "About last night…"

She went very still. He was trying best to figure out how to punish her for throwing up all over him. Yes, that made sense. It was more in character for him. She nodded sharply.

"Are you really that unhappy here?" he asked sharply, startling her.

"I'm sorry?"

"I know that… this isn't exactly… the way you would _prefer_ to spend your time but you've never been very open about how… how you feel about it – me. I, er, hate to see you _crying_," he winced, "after something that was – at least for me – so very enjoyable. Are you really that… _disgusted_ with me? With us?"

She stared at him in open shock. He was looking at the wall again, unable to meet her eyes. His hands were shaking, and he was fumbling for words like he wasn't the smooth, cold, collected Lucius Malfoy she'd come to know and… erm. Well. Love wouldn't be the best word to use there, would it?

"My Lord, I…" She had absolutely nothing to say to him. If he wanted her to be happy, he would leave her alone like she wanted.

His face, when he finally turned back to her, was carefully empty of any emotion. "I need to know, Hermione. Are you really unhappy here?"

She weighed her options carefully. He might know if she was lying, but she figured that angering a vulnerable, emotional Malfoy might not be the best idea. "I apologize for my behavior last night. It was out of place and uncalled for. I should know better than to seem ungrateful for what you give me, and I don't know at all what came over me," she said flatly.

The corners of his mouth tightened, and she thought she saw the line of his mouth become harder, but he nodded sharply. "As well it should be." He stood abruptly. "I have wasted enough of my time on you, Granger. You will find that your clothes are in the bathroom, and you will leave as quickly as possible." He turned his back to her as she left and she wondered, mystified, what he could possibly be hiding from her.

She dressed quickly, with trembling hands and a dry mouth, and when she came back into the bedroom, he was gone. She hurried back to her own chambers, and when the door was closed and locked, she put her head down between her knees and cried.

Hermione was screaming again, but only on the inside. She looked at herself in the mirror as she dressed that day, and heard the panic in her own head. Who was she? A stranger.

She clutched the sink and stared up at the glass above it. Her face was too pale, and pinched as if she was unhealthy. Her hair looked glossy now, as she'd been forced to put much more time into it than she normally would. Her lips were puffier, and she didn't know if she instinctively held them that way or if it was a sort of sick side effect of all the kisses. When she reached up a hand to try to smooth the wrinkles out of her forehead, she saw that her nails were a gaudy red, and much longer than she was used to.

Who was she? She took off her sleeping shirt and sighed. A Malfoy, with the crest stamped across her left breast in black ink. She remembered when Lucius tattooed it there. He'd kissed the place before sticking in the needle, and stroked it softly with his thumb as the pain coursed through her. It wasn't just a regular tattoo. It had a magic in it that bound her to his family that ran through her body and changed her so that she would be forced to be with them forever. She was a whore now, habitually doing her makeup too strong and wearing her skirt too short.

She was _not_ Hermione Granger. Hermione Malfoy, perhaps, or the Minister's whore. Malfoy's plaything. Bellatrix's pincushion.

She pushed down her too-short pajama shorts found the familiar birthmark on her right hip. She touched it with her ridiculously painted fingers and felt little comfort from the familiarity of the action. Seeing it made her feel more like herself, but then she remembered how Lucius had been drawn to the spot. It had quickly become one of his favorite places on her body. She put on her skirt quickly so that she wouldn't have to see it anymore.

It was at times like this that she felt almost as if Hermione Granger had died. If Harry and Ron could see her now…

She didn't let herself think of them often, because she knew it would hurt. She hadn't heard any news from the outside world – least of all about her friends. For all she knew, they were dead, or in trouble. The thought hit her with crippling force, and she clung tighter to the sink to stay standing. Would they even know her anymore? She, who barely recognized herself.

She wondered about the rest of them. Ginny, who was likely still in America. Neville, and Luna, who ought to be with her. And the few adult Order members who were left. Remus was in hiding with his baby, Teddy. Tonks had been hit by a stray _Avada Kedavra_ while doing patrol duty, and had left Teddy motherless. Tears welled in Hermione's eyes, and she wiped them away furiously.

_This_ was why she didn't think about that.

And once she started, she couldn't stop. She wanted them. All of them. Any of them. She wanted to go _home_ – home to a home she didn't have anymore. She let go of the sink and let herself fold slowly to the floor when the memory of her dead parents left her gasping for breath. She curled up into a tiny little ball and sobbed. If she remembered correctly, Malfoy himself had been behind her parents' deaths.

She hated him. God, she hated him, and she hated Bellatrix, and she hated it all.

Hermione sat on the floor of her bathroom in Lucius Malfoy's home and bawled her eyes out. Maybe he was right. Maybe she _was_ an ungrateful bitch. After all he'd given her – all the heartbreak, all the fears, all the nightmares that kept her awake back at Grimmauld Place. All the worries about her friends, who had become closer than family. Oh yes, he'd given her the world. His world. A dark world, full of Death Eaters and hatred and killing.

She wasn't cut out for it at all.

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**A/N: Again, I really appreciate the positive response I'm getting from you guys. Last time I asked for 11 reviews – I got 7 for the chapter. That's… 63%. Could be better, but could also be a LOT worse. With 15 alerts, now, can I ask for 15 reviews? And see if I can get more than 63% of that?**


	4. Playing Games

**Sorry for any awkward phrasings or little spare bits… Hymnophile told me she had a busy week up ahead and I really didn't want to bother her. I had the lovely EmMcD_Black look this over for me and you can blame her for any errors. I originally meant for this to be about three times longer but then I realized it was already quite long enough and… You'll just have to wait a little longer for Draco. Sorry! This needed to be done.

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**Chapter Three**

**Playing Games**

Hermione was surprised that morning to find not a sour-faced Bellatrix but instead an anxious-looking Lucius leaning over her and shaking her shoulder. She sat up blearily and he took her hand, not meeting her eyes.

"My Lord?" she asked cautiously. She leaned forward to kiss his cheek or… something… and she found him pulling her tightly into his arms, pressing his face into her loose hair.

She sat very still as he breathed in the scent of her shampoo and ran his hands down her back. He held her for what seemed like an eternity, and she barely dared to breathe. He was in one of his _moods_ again – they always frightened her because they never meant anything good.

Finally, he released her, his mouth in a tight line and his eyes worried.

"Is everything alright?" she asked in a small voice, pulling her legs out from under the covers slowly.

"The Dark Lord wishes to see you today," he said flatly. "This afternoon."

Hermione froze. She should have expected it. It only made sense that Voldemort would want to see her. What did she think, that the Dark Lord had let Lucius take her for his pleasure only? No, she'd known from the beginning she had to be more than just a sex slave. She'd been here for about a month, so really it was about time… It was just that Lucius had lulled her into a false sense of security, not even letting Bellatrix touch her. Shame washed through her when she realized she'd started feeling relatively safe here. Harry would have berated her for letting her guard down. Especially around two hardened Death Eaters.

She realized that Lucius was still looking at her intently, twisting his hands in his lap. "Oh," she managed faintly. She didn't feel particularly frightened – she barely felt anything at all. Just numb shock. How would a normal person react? Fear. She should be afraid.

He caught her chin and forced her to look up at him. "Hermione?"

She didn't try to pull away. "What time?"

"Three." He looked away again, like he couldn't meet her eyes for too long. "He wants you there promptly at three. Bellatrix will help you get ready. You need to look your nicest to meet him. He's not too fond of having a… a _mudblood_ in his private quarters."

_Define looking my nicest._ Knowing him, she'd still be dressed like a slut. Cold revulsion swept through her when she realized that she wouldn't be safely – ugh. Safety again – in the confines of the Manor, but would be around other Death Eaters – other _men_. And there was no guarantee that Lucius would be with her the whole time.

Better the devil you know than the devil you don't.

"What does –" Her voice rasped. She cleared her throat, and realized it had gone dry. "What does he want from me?"

"What do you expect, _Granger_?" He sneered at her and got to his feet. "My beloved sister-in-law will be in momentarily. I suggest that you are ready for her this time so as to avoid her antagonistic side. Please do not keep us waiting today. You overslept. We are on a schedule."

She just barely resisted scowling, but felt almost relieved that the old, commanding Malfoy was back. She didn't trust him when he had his walls down. While he may have considered himself more approachable, she found him to be more unpredictable and, consequently, much scarier that way.

"Yes, My Lord," she murmured, sliding all the way out of bed. He stood at the same time, and he headed for the door as she headed for the pile of clothes that she expected would be at the end of her bed.

There were none.

_My beloved sister-in-law will be in momentarily._

Hermione sighed and sat back down to wait for Bellatrix. She bit her lip, and worried a strand of hair. Voldemort. Lucius wanted her to meet Voldemort. She wanted to tell herself that she was being stupid; she'd known this, she'd expected this. If anything, she should be surprised that it had taken so long for the meeting to be arranged. She wasn't scared or anything. Just numb.

She wished she'd made Harry teach her more Occlumency. How many times had she gotten on his case about not practicing it well enough? She'd told him to go beg Snape for additional lessons; she'd nagged him about practicing it not only every waking moment but every sleeping moment as well; she'd been unsympathetic when his unwanted connection with Lord Voldemort had shown him horrible things. Now, Hermione Granger had to admit that she'd been foolish. Occlumency was one of the few disciplines that she hadn't insisted upon learning herself. And oh, did she regret it.

Maybe… No, it was too horrible a thought. She couldn't let herself think about that. She was embarrassed even to say that it made her hopeful. But maybe. Just maybe… Maybe Harry would see her in his dreams. Maybe he'd be able to tell Ron that she was okay. Although, she wouldn't be okay. Not in whatever dreams Harry did have. She was mortified. She'd begged him to block such images from his head at all costs. Now here she was, hoping that it would happen.

The door swung open and she almost screamed. She clapped her hand to her mouth and tensed her whole body, wishing for the millionth time that she was allowed her wand. She'd been expecting Bellatrix. Not… this.

The figure in the doorway wore long, flowing black robes that swirled around her ominously. The hem and the edges of the sleeves were embroidered in a slithering silver design, one that shifted into grotesque shapes with every movement of the rich black material. The long cape that pooled at the woman's feet was thick, heavy, and almost worn. Bellatrix had even thought to put the deep hood up. It was a nice touch. Under the hood was a silver glimmer – a result of the ornate mask that curled around her eyes, covered her nose, moved across her cheeks. Her dark eyes glittered with excitement and malice. It made Hermione's stomach turn.

She'd forgotten that Malfoy and Bellatrix would be in full regalia to meet their master. If she were being perfectly honest, they were much scarier this way than when they dressed in normal clothes, or even… No clothes. The Death Eater outfits sort of stripped away their humanity.

Not, of course, that they had any humanity.

God.

"Oh, don't look at me like that, Mudblood," Bellatrix scowled, holding up a pile of clothes. "You don't have to act like I'm the most disgusting thing in this room because I know for a fact that I'm not." She pushed down the hood, and her hair fell loose around her shoulders. Ripping off the mask, she looked at Hermione in disdain. "Don't you look peachy this morning? Stop looking so confident. The Dark Lord doesn't like it when the vermin don't respect him right."

Hermione prickled, but held her tongue. Bellatrix was not in the mood to be annoyed today.

"Here." The woman flung the robes at her. "Put these on while I get your things ready in the bathroom. Lucius doesn't trust you to get yourself ready today. You're representing him, remember. If he can't get his whores in order, he brings shame to himself." She swept away and Hermione looked skeptically at the robes she held in her hands.

Black. Of course. What else did she expect? But a finer material than one might guess that Lord Voldemort would allow someone so lowly to wear. They were fitted, too. The silk slid smoothly and tightly over her body when she pulled it on. Long sleeves glittered with tiny jewels, a skirt swished to her feet. The neckline was, of course, indecently low, and there was something about the way that it clung to the curves in her torso that made her uncomfortable.

"You done yet?" Bellatrix stuck her head out the bathroom door and scowled. "Come on."

Dully, Hermione let Bella do her hair and makeup. She really did prefer doing it herself. Bellatrix always yanked the comb too hard, and wasn't careful around her eyes with the mascara wand or the eyeliner.

The door opened and another tall, robed, masked figure stepped in. She had to fight back her revulsion. Sure, it was easy to pretend like Lucius Malfoy was merely a scary man when he was just around the house, but when he was a Death Eater she had to remember all the things he'd actually done to her, to her friends. To… her family. Her hands curled into fists when he laughed softly.

"Look at you, both looking so beautiful." He held out a gloved hand. "May I?"

Bellatrix poked Hermione hard in the ribs and she forced herself to slip her bare hand into his. The silk of his gloves was cold and smooth.

He pulled her to her feet and she guessed from the way that he turned his head that he was looking over to Bellatrix. "Are you ready, too?" he said, almost coldly.

She straightened her robes and put a powder compact down onto the long, marble counter. "Ready when you are."

It was late April. A cool breeze blew straight through her clothes when they stepped out the front door, and positively chilled her to the bone. Almost gently, Malfoy pushed up the hood of her dress and pulled her closer to him, tucking his cape around her shoulders. She shivered again, this time at being pressed up against his body like that.

There was a car waiting for them at the foot of the stairs. All three of them slid into the back seat, and Malfoy tapped the glass that separated them from the driver. This, Hermione was used to. They'd gone out like this before, always in the same sleek, black car, always sitting on the same plush row of seats, and never speaking to the driver. She couldn't see out the windows, but that was normal too, as she sat sandwiched between Malfoy and Bellatrix.

But when the car started moving, she didn't recognize the direction in which it was going. She'd almost memorized the feel of the drives to the houses of Malfoy's various cronies. They'd never gone this way before. The realization made her heart skip a beat.

Voldemort. She was going to meet Voldemort.

She closed her eyes and concentrated on keeping her breathing even. The silk around her fingers contracted when Lucius squeezed her hand gently. She didn't let herself think too much about it. If she weren't about to hyperventilate, she might have let herself wonder about this nicer side of Death Eater Malfoy.

The ten-minute drive felt like it took an eternity. Bellatrix grabbed her arm roughly and dragged her out of the car as soon as it stopped.

"You'll be walking behind Lucius," she muttered, yanking Hermione's dress to get rid of the wrinkles from sitting down. "You are not to make eye contact with anyone until you are addressed." She tweaked a strand of hair that hung in Hermione's face, and wiped her thumb under her eye to get rid of an eyeliner smudge. "Don't speak out of turn, and if you value your life do what you are asked for once."

The door on the other side of the car slammed and Malfoy swept toward the tall, marble staircase. Bellatrix curled her fingers tightly around Hermione's upper arm and they hurried after him. The heels of her unfamiliar shoes clicked against the cold, white stone. Their rhythm was a sharp, uneven staccato that seemed to echo the thrumming of her heart in her throat.

The massive double doors opened automatically into a wide, high-ceilinged hallway. Their every step echoed loudly and Hermione was forcibly reminded of the huge, echoing churches she'd seen when she'd spent a summer in France with her parents. She was sure Voldemort had the hall built like that on purpose – he'd know anyone who was coming or going.

Bellatrix's fingers dug almost painfully into her arm as they stopped in front of two mammoth oak doors. Lucius reached out for the heavy gold ring and knocked three times.

One of the doors creaked open just barely wide enough for one person to enter.

"Come!" The high, cold voice made Hermione's scalp prickle. She didn't just hear it with her ears. He was everywhere, inside her head, under her skin.

A shiver ran through her whole body as Lucius pushed through decisively. Bellatrix next, dragging Hermione roughly behind. She played her part well, tripping over the hem of her skirt, almost falling to the floor, and keeping her face hidden, her head down. She didn't dare to look around the room, but the brief glimpse of it that she saw wasn't promising. It was dark – torches lined the walls at odd intervals and the flickering light was so gloomy that no one would have guessed it was bright and sunny outside. The ceiling here was just as high as in the hall, and the room was huge, gloomy. In the center stood a tall, white chair, and atop the chair sat a pale figure in dark robes. She halted, unwilling to move forward.

Bellatrix shoved her forward and she fell in a heap on her knees, her hands smacking so painfully against the parquet floor that tears sprang in her eyes.

"Well, well, well," the voice sighed gratingly. Her ears cringed at the sound of his laugh. "Looks like Lucius _has _managed to tame the Mudblood after all. Who would have thought it?"

There was a low rumble from all sides. Hermione peeked up her head just enough to see that she was kneeling in the middle of a circle of sycophantically chuckling Death Eaters, crouched at the feet both of her Lord Malfoy and of Lord Voldemort. She ducked her head, partly in fear, partly in mortification.

"Oh, go on, Hermione," said Voldemort, not unkindly. "I hate to see you sunk down to this level. From what I heard, you were brave. _Prove it_. Look at me, girl. _Look at me._"

She forced her eyes back up at him, and almost looked away in disgust. She'd never seen him before, never faced him. She felt like a coward when she realized how many times Harry had faced this… this man. This _thing_. He was truly a monster, with his too-pale, snakelike face, his head bald, his lipless mouth curled into a vicious smile, his glittering eyes trapping hers and forbidding her to look anywhere else. She stared long and hard into those eyes, and felt him probing her, testing the connection he'd made with their locked gazes, almost worming his way into her head. She shivered again. _Occlumency. Occlumency!_ She screamed at herself. Where was Harry when she needed him most?

"Tut, tut," Voldemort said dismissively. "Still thinking about Potter, are you? Wouldn't you think that's _ungrateful_ after all Lord Malfoy has done for you?" He looked away and Hermione swayed on her knees, trying hard not to pitch forward on her face. "What do you say, Lucius?"

"She misses her friends," he said, in an oddly strangled voice. "More than once I've caught her trying to contact them. I must say that her insistence to be reunited with them does make her more… distant."

"Oh, but this _is_ interesting." Voldemort twirled his wand between his long, white fingers, and Hermione flinched. He laughed coldly. "Dear girl, do you really think we would hurt you? After all, you could be so valuable to us. Has Lucius not told you that? I'm disappointed in him." He waved behind him. "Look, we've even brought you a present."

She dragged her eyes from his face to his left, where another man in black was striding forward, dragging a stooped woman who was dressed very much as she was. The man dragged her head up roughly, and all the breath left Hermione's body in a whoosh.

Her mind raced through its various catalogs.

Emmeline Vance: Last seen December 16 of the previous year. Presumed dead by Order members. Missing from her job at the Ministry. Body unrecovered.

And her physical appearance: Her dress in the same black material as Hermione's. Low cut to show a crest stamped into her left breast. Head bent low, eyes on the ground. Hands behind her back, held roughly between the long fingers of the Death Eater who stood behind her.

_Emmeline had suffered the same fate as she had. _

Hermione's pulse sped up. Emmeline had been missing for four months now, and they'd presumed her dead even without a body. Would Harry and Ron think that she was dead? Her head spun; she swayed where she knelt and looked down at the floor.

Voldemort laughed softly. "See someone familiar, Miss Granger? We thought you might appreciate having a friend."

Emmeline's eyes flashed up to where Hermione kneeled, and she paled. The two women shared a look that did not go unnoticed by any of the Death Eaters. The masked man behind Emmeline forced her head back down, and Lucius fidgeted beside Hermione. A murmur swept through the circle.

_Is this why I'm here? So that they can _mock_ me?_

"I suppose you're wondering why you're here," Voldemort said, as if he picked the thought directly out of her mind. "I would be lying to you if I said that this meeting wasn't more than a meet-and-greet."

His casual tone made her grit her teeth. "Just tell me what you're going to do with me," she growled. "Don't play with me."

She expected Voldemort to curse her for impudence, but he merely looked at her thoughtfully. "Well played, my dear. Getting the games out of the way _will_ make this so much easier." He stroked his wand threateningly, right in her line of sight. "I have a few questions, of course."

"I'm not telling you anything about Harry," she lied. If he wanted the information, he would pick it straight out of her brain. She wouldn't be able to stop him.

"Of course you won't." He was still smiling, almost gloatingly. "The brave Gryffindor would never betray her friends."

Fingers dug tightly into her shoulder; she looked up quickly to see Lucius gripping her as if for support. Emmeline's eyes flickered up again for the briefest of moments. She looked at Hermione questioningly before she was forced back down.

Hermione did her best not to look away when he met her eyes again. "So I don't suppose you'll tell me what he and the blood traitor brat are doing locked up in the House of Black?"

"No, My Lord."

"Not even a little clue?" Instead of getting angry, as she expected, he only smiled wider.

"I suppose they're doing their best to figure out how to defeat you using only Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes products."

He flicked his wand casually. She cringed, but instead of feeling pain, she heard screaming. She looked around, confused, and saw Emmeline writhing under what could only be the Cruciatus Curse, her wrists still clamped in the iron fetters of her master's hands. She couldn't fall to the ground so she hung, limply, almost suspended by her wrists, twitching.

It made Hermione's stomach turn. So _this_ was the game that Voldemort wanted to play?

She didn't look away from Emmeline until she stopped screaming. Panting, she looked up and her eyes met Hermione's. They were still strong, still defiant. The message was clear: Keep lying.

"And how does Potter spend most of his time, Hermione?"

She looked guiltily up at Emmeline, who offered her a thin smile. Trying very hard not to let her voice shake she said, "Well, I'm not sure, My Lord. He spends most of his time in his room with the door locked. Ron and I hear strange noises sometimes, and we don't think we _want_ to know."

More shrieking, longer this time.

"I'm disappointed in you, Hermione," Voldemort said languidly. "How are the other Order members doing?"

She forced her chin up and scowled. "You mean like Emmeline? Oh, they're doing spectacularly. They just love being trussed up and made into playthings."

Voldemort's eyes flashed and Emmeline wailed. Tears streamed down her face and the Death Eater dropped her unceremoniously into a heap on the floor, where she lay, twitching violently. The world seemed to turn at a funny angle, and Hermione had to take a few deep breaths. She thought she might be sick.

Lucius forced her chin up. She met his eyes under the mask, and they flashed a warning at her. "Behave," he mouthed. She swallowed hard. Bellatrix had warned her not to be disrespectful. She could only imagine how he would punish her later on.

"You seem rather ungrateful to be alive, don't you think? If you prefer not to be – ah – trussed up and made into a plaything, I'm sure we could arrange something else. Would death suit you better? Or we could give you to Fenrir. He's been positively longing for fresh meat. He would be quick, I promise you."

"No, My Lord," she murmured. Fenrir Greyback. He'd mutilated Bill's face. He'd ruined Remus' life. He'd done unspeakable things to countless innocent children.

"Oh, so you admit that you enjoy being with Lucius? Does he please you?"

Her cheeks burned. "My Lord Malfoy performs adequately in bed."

"Hear that, Lucius?" Voldemort chuckled. "You're merely adequate. I wonder if Narcissa would have said the same. A pity she couldn't be with us today."

Malfoy's fingers were so tight on her shoulder that she gave a little gasp and tried to squirm away.

"I'm sure Narcissa would not have cared to see a Mudblood whore in her house," he said coolly. "It is perhaps well that she is gone, so that she does not have to see our family name tainted by such _filth_."

The tears that welled in Hermione's eyes this time were inexplicable. She _knew_ Malfoy didn't care for her. Why did it hurt so much to have him ridicule her in public? It was only what she deserved, after disrespecting him.

"I do believe you're hurting her feelings," Voldemort said dryly. "I hope you haven't become too attached to your pet, Lucius. You know she is dispensable."

"Of course, My Lord." His fingers loosened a fraction.

"Now Hermione. Your answers are quite amusing, but this question is serious this time, so I need you to listen very closely. What task did dear old Dumbledore leave behind for your Golden Boy?"

Her insides turned to ice. "Dumbledore wants Harry to find and defeat the Crumple-Horned Snorkack," she said solemnly.

Emmeline let out the worst scream yet – even some of the Death Eaters turned away uncomfortably. A little sob rose in the back of Hermioine's throat, but she ignored it, meeting Voldemort's eyes squarely as he smirked at her. His gaze flickered between her and Emmeline, watching as she paled, as she swayed, as she struggled to keep her focus.

"Stop! Please!" she finally screamed. "You're hurting her."

He lifted his wand and the screaming turned into sniffling, but he didn't seem perturbed. "That is the point, Hermione. And besides, it's only mental. I'm not hurting her physically."

"I don't care," she said stiffly. "I don't want people to be tortured in my name. If you're so upset with me, why don't you curse me yourself?"

"No!" Emmeline cried. Tears were running down her face, making tracks in her thick makeup. She pushed a limp, sweaty strand of hair off her neck. "No, Hermione. You're too valuable."

"You've proved yourself very amusing game, Miss Granger," Voldemort said, waving Emmeline and her Death Eater away absently. "It's no wonder that Lucius is attached to you. I'm sure any in my circle would be pleased to claim you as his own."

She didn't know what to say to that.

"I'll let you get away with your toy answers this time," he went on, "but next time you might not be so lucky. You're not completely indispensable, and I'm afraid I can't afford to waste much more time." He looked up at Lucius. "You may go, now. Thank you for coming."

Lucius bowed forward deeply, leaning hard on Hermione before he rose and helped her to her feet. She stood stiffly, her knees protesting. "Thank you, My Lord."

He led her out of the room, and Bellatrix trailed sulkily behind them. Hermione wondered faintly if the woman had been hoping Hermione herself would suffer for wrong answers. She felt sick inside. She'd caused Emmeline so much pain. It was a hard line to walk – protecting Harry, or keeping others from harm? They'd all taken a vow before they could join the order – Harry would come first. She'd never thought she'd have to execute it.

Lucius came to a stop when they stood out on the marble steps, and she leaned heavily into his arm, still weak at the knees from kneeling and from nerves. "Avery," he said. She realized they'd reached another Death Eater.

"Malfoy," Avery said silkily. "I trust the invitation still stands?"

"Of course. I don't know if you want to take your…" Lucius had pulled his hood down, and she saw his eyes flicker distastefully to the bundle of robes at Avery's feet. She realized with a pang that Emmeline was bound to _Avery_. "Your companion home before you stop by."

"No, it's quite alright." He looked down at Emmeline, unconcerned. "Miss Vance would probably do well to have the company of a fellow slut, isn't that right?" Hermione bristled. "Oh, does that bother you?" He chuckled. "You picked a real lion, Lucius. Ever the Gryffindor. Ever the temptress."

Malfoy squeezed her fingers briefly. "I do hope that I should have the finest taste," he said haughtily. "You can Apparate, if you wish, or you can follow our car. We will meet you back at the Manor." Tugging Hermione after him, and ever trailed by Bellatrix, he swept down the steps to the car.

"What was that about?" Hermione murmured.

"Avery's invited himself for dinner. He supposes he has news of some importance to share with us."

* * *

**So that's that... I'm wondering. Here's a little poll. Harry and Ron are quite busy right now, and the outline is full of their little adventures. But there's no room in the actual story for more than a few rumors to meet Hermione's ears. Are you interested in a side chapter about the boys? Or maybe a little one-shot? Or MAYBE I could write one up tomorrow and dole it out as a little present for anyone who reviews. Something to think about. Let me know...**

**Let's try for ten reviews this time? Love you all! Thanks for reading.  
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	5. Of Pincushions and Common Whores

**Did I dedicate the last chapter to Hymnophile? Maybe I did. Hmm. Then this is to all of you, for your lovely reviews. 11 – my most reviewed chapter yet. AND a C2 add. Loves, I'm flattered. And this is ESPECIALLY for Emily for being the best cousin ever. What? Don't you all look at me like that. Trust me, this isn't the chapter you want dedicated to you. Draco's not in it?**

**But I have reassurance from Hymnophile that all of you are getting rather anxious for our favorite blond to enter the scene, so I actually cut out half a chapter from my outline. Just for you. Draco in two, I think. It's too dark for me to check my outline so I can't say for sure. **

**And it's dedicated to her in spirit for, if nothing else, her sarcastic little comments that keep me going. Here's the chapter.**

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**Chapter Four**

**Of Pincushions and Common Whores**

Bellatrix yanked a brush painfully through Hermione's hair, muttering to herself under her breath. She turned up the girl's face roughly and fixed her makeup so violently that it hurt.

"What's bothering you?" Hermione asked, shying away when Bellatrix tried to put more mascara onto her. "Are you angry about the way I answered?"

"No." Bellatrix just stepped closer to her and almost jabbed the mascara wand into Hermione's eye. "That has nothing to do with it."

"Is it Avery?"

She said nothing for a long moment, and then ran her thumb under Hermione's eye almost gently, wiping the smudge away on her skirt before letting go of her head. "Yes, it's Avery. I don't know what gave him the right to invite himself or _why_ Lucius didn't tell him no. He's an insufferably perverse man with the table manners of a pig. Lucius does not favor his company in the least, and he does not want you exposed to someone who treats his whore like such garbage." She rolled her eyes. "In that respect he's being an overprotective fool, but that doesn't change the way I feel about Jacob." She appraised her makeup job, and then nodded curtly. "Your dinner dress is in the corner. I suggest you hurry up – they'll be here any minute." And with that, she swept away.

Hermione looked blankly at herself in the mirror for a few, long moments. She was still too pale from her encounter with Voldemort; her eyes were wide and she realized that her hands still shook. She folded them together tightly and closed her dark-rimmed eyes, taking deep breaths and trying to empty her mind rather than relive the past hour. Screaming still echoed in her head, bouncing painfully around her skull and giving her a nauseous headache. _She'd caused that_. She would have to apologize to Emmeline somehow…

How had Harry managed it all those times? He'd been alone, and he'd been unprepared, but he'd never come out of an encounter with Lord Voldemort with more than a lightning shaped scar or more news to report to Dumbledore. How many times had they faced each other? Five. At least five, in some form or another. Not to mention all the dreams that Harry had had in between confrontations… How was it that he was so brave and she and Ron were really so clueless?

Unless, of course, Harry and Ron had been up to something in her absence .She wouldn't put it past them; she didn't expect Harry to stay still and wait around for so long. It had been at least a month now. What would they have done without her? Had they made any progress?

Her eyes snapped open and she dressed in her blood red dinner dress before she could let herself think about them anymore. She'd had enough pain and frustration in one day. She didn't need more.

Lucius was waiting for her outside the bathroom door, wearing rich, black robes and an unreadable expression. He held his arm out to her, and she took it tentatively. "You look nice," he said, leading her to the door.

"Thank you, My Lord. As do you." She looked at her feet rather than at him, still afraid that he would be angry over her behavior from earlier.

He sighed. "There are a few things I should tell you about Avery before I force you to spend a mealtime with him. You saw how little he cared for Emmeline Vance – he has very little respect for women. He likes challenges, and I'm afraid that you caught his eye when you stood up first to the Dark Lord, then to him today. It would be prudent of you to avoid attracting his attention for the remainder of the evening."

She glanced up at him, and was startled by the worry in his eyes. Her stomach turned unpleasantly.

"What does it matter, anyway? It's not like I'm anything special here. I'm just Lucius Malfoy's _whore_. I'm dispensable, remember?"

For a moment, she thought he was going to hit her. She'd never spoken to him like that before. But then she saw vulnerability in his eyes much like she'd seen the morning after she'd thrown up and cried after sex. What was the bastard doing? Was he _trying_ to drive her mad? Act like he had feelings for her? How _dare_ he be concerned when he was the one who'd locked her up and brought her to this in the first place?

"When you're in my house, you're more than that, if only a little," he murmured into her ear. She shivered but didn't dare try to pull away. "I won't have Avery shaming you under my roof. Even _you_ deserve better treatment than that." His lips skimmed her cheek briefly before he straightened up again.

He led her out into the foyer where the house elves had set out aperitifs and tea light candles. She sighed. Apparently, Jacob Avery was important enough for the guest treatment. That meant heavy food, lots of manners, and some obnoxious, awkward staring.

Lucius directed her to sit on an overstuffed green footstool right beside his favorite armchair and she sighed again. They were really taking it so far that the whores would sit at their masters' feet. She sat reluctantly, and he sank into the high armchair, reaching for her hand. She let him take it, a little surprised.

There was a knock on the door and Bellatrix hurried through the room, in one door, and out the other, in the direction of the front door. Hermione heard the door open, and Lucius gripped her fingers painfully. She resisted rolling her eyes, more than a little annoyed with him.

"Avery," Bellatrix drawled from the hall. "How nice of you to drop by."

"Bella," Avery said coldly, his disdain no better hidden than Bellatrix's. "How nice of you to have us."

"I'll take your cloak," Bellatrix seethed, "if you two would like to go ahead and meet Lucius and Granger in the foyer."

"Oh, are we letting the vermin all the way into the house now?" Hermione heard the sharp distaste in the man's voice. "I must say, the lioness is taming him in more ways than I would have expected. Wasn't it supposed to be the other way around?"

"I have no idea," Bellatrix said flatly. "I only do what he tells me. Please go ahead. Miss Vance, I'll take your cloak too, if you'd like?"

Hermione winced at the dull, unenthusiastic tone of her voice. She could imagine how Bellatrix would be glaring at poor Emmeline, and almost expected Emmeline to answer back sharply. But she wouldn't. Of course, she wouldn't, with a monster like Avery for a master.

Did that mean she didn't consider Malfoy a monster?

He stroked his thumb across the back of her hand absently, and she wanted to pull away. Suddenly, her body flooded with an overwhelming urge to _piss him off_ tonight. She was sick of him, sick of his acts and his lies. She'd suffer for it, but it might be worth it. She leaned into the arm of his chair stiffly, and he smiled absently as the sound of Avery's heavy footsteps and Emmeline's smaller, timid shuffling came toward them.

"Lucius!" Avery exclaimed, in his harsh, too-loud voice. "How good of you to have us."

Lucius rose, pulling Hermione up with him. "How good it is to see you," he said, moving over to greet the Death Eater. They shook hands familiarly, and Hermione looked over to Emmeline, who was carefully not meeting anyone's eyes. Lucius nudged Hermione, and she looked up at Avery and smiled.

"It was good of you to come, Lord Avery," she said dutifully, leaning on Lucius' hand for balance and dipping into a curtsy. She saw his eyes fall to her cleavage, and pushed her chest forward, pouting in what she hoped was her most attractive way. He smiled bemusedly.

"You look lovely tonight, Miss Granger."

"Thank you, My Lord." She straightened and fluttered her eyelashes, feeling ridiculous. Lucius and Emmeline both looked at her sharply, questioningly, but she pretended like the embarrassed heat in her cheeks was an intentional flush.

There was an awkward pause, and then Avery shoved Emmeline forward. "I suppose you two have some catching up to do," he leered. "I won't stop you. Emmeline's been going on and on about how much she wanted to see you, haven't you dearest?" He looked down at her threateningly, and she nodded quickly.

"Yes, My Lord."

Lucius freed his hand from Hermione's and gestured widely to the foyer. "Avery, if you would like to come in for refreshments," he began, "maybe Hermione—you could take Emmeline to your room for a bit? We'll call you when dinner is ready."

"Yes, My Lord." Lucius looked at Hermione expectantly and she rose up on her toes to kiss his cheek.

"This isn't what I'd planned. Please behave and do as I say," he whispered into her ear. She nodded quickly and held out a hand to Emmeline.

"This way, if you please, Miss Vance."

Emmeline looked up at Avery, who nudged her not-too-gently toward Hermione. Hermione took her arm and led her slowly away from the men, noticing that Emmeline leaned heavily on her, and moved slowly. She felt sick with guilt again – had this all been her fault? What else had Emmeline been subjected to? As soon as the men were safely in the foyer, Bellatrix had swept off somewhere, and they reached the stairs, Hermione stopped and told Emmeline to sit and catch her breath. The woman sank down onto the lowest step gratefully, her body seeming to shake with effort. Hermione noticed that, under her dress, Emmeline was painfully thin, and that her joints seemed to stick out too far at odd angles.

"Are you all right?" Hermione asked anxiously, sitting slowly down beside her.

She looked like she was going to mumble something about being fine, and Hermione took her hand. "You don't have to lie to me," she said softly. "I know how it is. Trust me."

"Can I?" Emmeline's large, dark eyes were wide and almost accusatory. "I saw the way you acted with Malfoy today."

Hermione suddenly found it very hard to breathe. "And how was that?" she asked levelly.

The older woman flinched at the edge in her voice, and she tried to soften her expression. Clearly, Emmeline had been mistreated. She was dealing with trauma. Hermione had to remind herself to be gentle.

"He… he… I don't know how to explain it. He didn't treat you like you're total garbage. I saw it in his face, Hermione. There's something more there, something deeper. He was genuinely afraid for you every time He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named got angry. He didn't just want you to hold your tongue to keep from embarrassing him, but he wanted to keep you safe."

"Lucius isn't like Avery," Hermione said flatly.

Emmeline looked at her in disbelief.

"What?"

"_Lucius?_ Since when is Malfoy _Lucius?_"

"I – " She wanted to deny everything, but the accusations rang true. "I've been wondering about him myself. He doesn't always act like a complete arse, and I can't understand why. I haven't given him any reason to like me or even to treat me humanely, and mostly he doesn't, but there are times…" Like when he held her when she cried. Like when he reached for her hand when they were both distressed. Like when he kept Bellatrix from hurting her.

Emmeline's eyes were gentle, concerned. Hermione wanted to run far away, first from Lucius, then from Emmeline, who was sitting there and giving her sympathy when _she_ should have been the one apologizing.

Heels clicked angrily across the floor and Hermione looked up to see Bellatrix coming at them, carrying a tray of champagne.

"Oh," she said acerbically. "It's you two."

Emmeline hid slightly behind Hermione, who lifted her chin haughtily. "Yes, do you have a problem with that?"

Bellatrix's dark eyes flickered from her face to the woman cowering behind her, and a hint of a smile played across her thin lips. "I suppose I'll leave you two to catch up then, won't I?" she smirked. "I can only imagine that you have much to discuss. Do try to behave yourselves."

Hermione glared. "Go wait on Lucius, Bella. You know he doesn't like to be kept waiting. How did you get roped into being the serving maid tonight? Was he angry with you? I thought that was house elf work."

"The _house elves_ are busy in the kitchen," Bellatrix sneered. "I'll see you ladies at dinner." She hurried on ahead, and Hermione couldn't help feeling satisfied that she'd gotten under the woman's skin.

"What the hell was that?" Emmeline demanded. "Hermione, I don't understand anything here. Bellatrix is Malfoy's… erm…"

"Houseguest?" Hermione supplied.

"Does he know you're being so rude to her?"

"It amuses him, although he doesn't let it on. I suppose she'll go tattle to him and I'll pay for it later. He can't really have me getting away with that."

"Why doesn't she just take it out on you herself?"

She shrugged uncomfortably. "He prefers to punish me himself. He'd rather that she doesn't touch me. He's not so much for pain, and whenever I tell him that she hurts me he gets very angry. He prefers his own methods of… torture."

Emmeline flushed pink and her mouth formed a little "Oh" of understanding, but her brow was still creased with confusion.

"Come up to my rooms," Hermione said. "I'll explain everything to you once we're less in the open."

They made their slow, painful way up the stairs, and then Hermione guided Emmeline into her softest, most comfortable armchair.

"I'm sorry about earlier," she said awkwardly, watching the woman settle gingerly.

"Don't be." Emmeline winced and sat back. "Your job is to protect Harry."

"That doesn't mean you have to get hurt at my expense. It isn't fair that I lie and you pay for it. I should be the one being punished for something like that."

Emmeline reached for her hand. "Hermione, don't worry about it. I knew it was coming. I upset Avery earlier this week – he promised me that I'd pay for it. You do your job and I'll do mine."

"Your job is _not_ to be a pincushion," Hermione retorted angrily.

"If it's the best I can do right now, then it's what I'll do." The woman lifted her chin proudly, and Hermione was ashamed of herself.

"I'm sorry. I was just so surprised to see you there. We hadn't heard from you in so long… We'd thought… We'd assumed…"

"That I was dead?"

An awkward nod.

"In the future, never presume dead until there's a body found." Emmeline rubbed her hands together absently. "We learned that lesson a long time ago with Peter Pettigrew." She was silent for a moment. "I'm surprised Alastor didn't remind you."

"Professor Moody…" Hermione had hoped it wouldn't come to this. Emmeline didn't need bad news on top of it all. She twisted her hands in her skirt, watching the silky material bunch between her fingers. "He's not with us right now. He's in hiding."

"In _hiding_? _Alastor?_"

"Things aren't very safe right now," she sighed. "Most of the remaining adult Order members are on the run."

"The _remaining_ Order members?"

Hermione winced. "There have been many… deaths and disappearances. You weren't the only one."

"Tell me," Emmeline said flatly. "I've gone long enough without news."

And so Hermione told her. She told her about how they'd dropped out of school and how Dumbledore had given them a mission. She told her how the Death Eaters had started picking them off, one by one, starting with the Weasley family and then moving quickly through the upper ranks of the Order. She recounted how, finally, the Order had realized that they were safer spread apart than all together, and so those who could protect themselves well enough had taken off to all different parts of the country, where they'd be harder to track. Finally, she told her about how news reached them from time to time – Kingsley had gone missing. Dedalus Diggle's body had turned up, face down, in the Thames. Mrs. Figg's house had been completely burned down, and Mrs. Figg herself hadn't been seen since. Elphias Doge hadn't turned up when he was supposed to meet them at the Leaky Cauldron three weeks prior to Hermione's abduction, and they'd heard no news.

She had to stop. The weight of their losses sat heavily on her chest, making it hard to breathe. Tears pricked in her eyes, but she'd gotten good at suppressing them.

"So now it's down to you three?" Emmeline asked softly.

"Now it's down to us." Hermione was still looking at her hands. "Or, I guess, Harry and Ron now. There's a few of us all over, so maybe they've met up and regrouped. I really don't know. It's been a month, and I haven't heard anything since."

"Do they know where you are?"

She managed to shrug a shoulder. "I don't know. I would only assume so. There's been more than enough press outside the Ministry every time Lucius and I are there together. There must be _something_ in the papers. But I'm not allowed to read The Prophet, so I really have no idea."

"So now you're stuck here with a Lucius Malfoy who's treating you strangely." Emmeline sighed. "I'm so sorry, Hermione. You never should have gotten roped into this."

"Neither should you!" she said hotly. "No one deserves thi_s."_

"But I knew what I was getting into," Emmeline said patiently. "I knew my risks. And we were supposed to protect you three at all costs, because you had to be together. The Order was relying heavily on you. You weren't supposed to be taken out of play. It was against anything in the plans."

"Yes, well, we've sort of had to drop the plans now that everyone's in hiding, haven't we?"

Emmeline looked abashed. "So, what's the plan now?"

"Now?" Hermione sighed. "Winging it, mostly. I'm in half a mind to piss off Lucius right now, just to tell him that I'm confused by what he's doing. I know he won't like it at all, but it would feel good to do _something_."

"Is it safe?"

"God, I don't know. I don't even know if I care anymore." She bit her lip. "I'm here. I might as well use this opportunity."

"Don't hurt yourself."

"I won't. Actually I –" She broke off, blushing.

"You what?"

"Lucius doesn't like Avery much," she said slowly. "And he's an overprotective fool…"

"You have that much of a death wish?" Emmeline asked, almost amused.

""Can you think of anything better?" Hermione said hotly. "I'm just bored. It's something to do. And anyway, aren't whores supposed to be infidels or something?"

"Hermione, you're not a whore," Emmeline said gently.

"I feel like it. I might as well be."

"You're no more a whore than I am," the woman said sharply.

"Yeah, well, look at yourself," Hermione said, almost unkindly. "Not so much a whore as a knife sharpener. Do you really think that's how I want to end up?"

"Because I want it so much, do I?"

"I'm sorry. You know what I mean."

"I know. I'm sorry, too. But please, Hermione. Make sure you know what you're getting yourself into. I said earlier that Avery isn't like Malfoy and I meant it. He's not nearly as… courteous as Lord Malfoy. And that's saying something."

"Not really. He's all about his refined tastes and good breeding. He does a good job of pretending to be a gentleman."

"Usually, the ones who pretend to be gentlemen are the worst underneath."

"I've learned that one well enough."

The door opened unceremoniously and Hermione was a little startled to see that Bellatrix was still playing the role of Lucius' housemaid. She stood crossly in the doorway and glared at the two women. "I'm to tell you that dinner's ready, and that you should go down at your convenience, since you're clearly enjoying yourselves up here. God forbid anyone should come break up your gossip session."

"We'll come now," Hermione said coldly, helping Emmeline to her feet. "So nice of you to come and warn us, Bellatrix."

"Watch it," she murmured, as Hermione slipped past on the way out the door. "What Lucius doesn't know won't hurt him."

Emmeline's grip on her fingers tightened sympathetically, and she shrugged, unwilling to let the older woman get under her skin.

They made their way slowly downstairs. Bellatrix looked like she wanted to sweep past them, but she grumbled the whole way down, mocking Emmeline's slow pace. She led them across the hall and into the dining room, where Lucius and Avery were already waiting.

"So nice of you to join us, my dears," Lucius said brightly, standing. Avery stood too, probably out of necessity more than actual desire. Malfoy's house, Malfoy's rules.

"It was thoughtful of you to send for us," Hermione said, shooting what she hoped was a coy smile toward Avery. "We wouldn't have wanted to miss dinner with such _fine_ wizards as yourselves."

The shorter, pudgier wizard almost seemed to blush at Hermione's words. Lucius looked at her curiously, but said nothing, merely pulling out a chair for her at his side. Emmeline gave her hand one last squeeze before reluctantly taking her place next to Avery. They all sat, and Lucius rang the bell for the house elves to come in.

Hermione's stomach churned uncomfortably when the first whiffs of dinner reached her nose. It would be more of the same, then. Of course, when they had company. Lucius was one for rich, fine foods that were far too heavy for her taste. What she wouldn't give for Mrs. Weasley's cooking just then…

A diminutive house elf put something that looked terribly like a whole duck in front of her, and glared at her through narrowed, tennis ball eyes. She shivered at the dislike in them – surely not even _elves_ were prejudiced against her. Calico was nice. She'd thought they all would be…

"Thank you," she murmured, trying to ignore the nausea that swept through her.

The elf looked at her for another moment, and then scuttled away. Lucius poured her a goblet of wine, and she sipped at it tentatively.

"Granger," he said conversationally. She winced at the use of her last name. "Avery was telling me some rather interesting news about some friends of yours."

"Were you?" Hermione set her goblet aside and leaned across the table to make eyes at Avery, all too aware that her posture gave him ample view of her cleavage. "Well I'm sure an important Ministry man like you would hear all the news, wouldn't you?"

Emmeline took a deep sip of her wine and looked as if she were choking. Hermione let herself smile faintly, knowing she was probably pushing the sultry voice a little too hard.

Avery blinked at her, and then puffed up his chest almost ridiculously. "Yes, well." He fingered his collar. "When you're in a position such as my own, word does get around."

She choked back a laugh. Assistant Head of the Department of Wizards in Muggle Housing was hardly the top rung of the Ministry. "I'm sure," she almost purred. She had to sit up a little, though. The beads around her neck were trailing in the duck sauce. "And what word might a _prestigious _man like you have heard?"

"Ah, Miss Granger." He chortled deeply and took a large bite of quail. "You know that information like that is strictly classified."

"You can't tell me?" she pouted, ignoring that her heart was going a mile a minute. News from Harry and Ron!

"Well." He glanced over at Emmeline, and then at Lucius, who was sitting stiffly at the edge of his seat, his eyes cold and hard. "I suppose a little news wouldn't hurt, eh, Lucius?"

"Do as you see fit," Malfoy said curtly, barely moving his mouth. Butterflies fluttered in Hermione's stomach. He was _mad_.

"Well." Avery lowered his voice conspiratorially even as his eyes drifted lower over Hermione's body. She leaned a little more forward. "There have been rumors of a break in."

"A break in?" she said, as if it were the most fascinating thing in the world. Her heart was in her throat, now. What would Ron and Harry break into? And why? "Where?"

"Now Jacob," Bellatrix said stiffly. "Do you really think it _prudent?"_

"Oh, lighten up Bellatrix," he said. "A little information won't hurt, eh?"

"She's a _Mudblood_," Bellatrix hissed. Her knife glittered in the candlelight, catching the light as she gripped it tighter, more like a weapon than a piece of cutlery.

"Who's she going to tell?" he snapped back.

"I would never do such a thing!" Hermione said, as if outraged. She fluttered her eyelashes madly. "What sort of way would that be to repay the wizards who have so kindly taken me in and given me so much?"

"Has someone told you yet how lovely you look tonight, Miss Granger?" Avery asked abruptly. She frowned, annoyed. He wasn't supposed to get this distracted. Just distracted enough to let a little more information slip.

There was a loud clatter as Lucius' silverware slipped through his fingers. "Hermione, you're not eating. Is your food not satisfactory?" There was a razor's edge in his voice.

She winced and shaved a tiny piece of meat off her duck. It smelled nauseatingly strong. When she put it into her mouth, her stomach heaved and she had to shove away from the table. Her shoe slipped off as she ran, head spinning dizzily, into the nearest bathroom and lost everything to the toilet. She heaved and heaved until she thought there could barely be anything left in her stomach, but it kept coming.

An eternity later, she lay, panting, with her cheek pressed to the cool marble of the floor. A throat cleared dryly above her, and she looked up faintly to realize that Lucius was standing, looking down at her with sharp disapproval. She tried to stand, but swayed. He caught her at the elbow and forced her upright.

"My Lord, I'm sorry," she whispered quickly, her voice rasping. Her tongue tasted like something had died and her throat was like sandpaper. "I'm sorry I ruined the meal, I –"

"Silence." She saw none of the warmth in his eyes that had been there before, when he complimented her dress. He looked furious. He looked like a _Death Eater_. He gripped her arm too tightly, and tears welled into his eyes.

"I'm sorry, I –"

"Bellatrix will take you to your room," he said, shoving her ungracefully toward the woman who hovered behind them, a mixture of disgust and glee on her face. "You won't be eating with us tonight, since you clearly can't stomach it." He swept away, and Bellatrix poked Hermione in the ribs.

"Come on. Up."

Twenty minutes later, Hermione was locked into her room, starving, parched, and curled up on her bed, sobbing again.

* * *

**If you want Draco to come in, clap your hands! *REVIEW* Oh, and tell me. Getting curious about Harry and Ron? Or can they be a side story until they waltz in later and… erm. That's a spoiler. Hmm. The next chapter is a good one, too. You know what makes me write faster.**

**LOVE YOU ALL! **

**xoxox, Lily  
**


	6. Sleepless

**Hi all. Sorry if this is a bit long and morbid… I was in a funk when I wrote this, but it actually fits the chapter… Also, sorry if this is a bit predictable/cliché. Sorry. Draco in the next chapter should make up for it. :)**

**Note to mamiamami – sorry if you think it's going a bit slow. I wondered about the pacing myself but this is how it worked in the outline and I can't imagine it working any other way. I apologize if this is slow for you, but things are about to change. Your compliment was otherwise lovely.**

**Enjoy!

* * *

**

**Chapter Five**

**Sleepless**

Lucius didn't come into her room that night. It wasn't to be expected—it was her punishment, though it was almost worse waiting up for him.

She didn't sleep that night, not that she'd expected to. Rather, she tossed and turned, images flashing through her mind that she was sure would only worsen if she closed her eyes. A cavernous, dark room. Lines of people in black cloaks. A high-pitched keening, and a cold, high laugh. Emmeline. A face, too pale against the blackness. Eyes wide open, body twitching. Flailing. Pain.

Her heart ached as she moved under the cool, silk sheets. Her head hurt already – she was sure the sleeplessness would only cause her pain later. Her eyes strained when she stared up at the dark ceiling, too dry from crying.

The door opened around eight in the morning, when the sunlight was pushing through the tiny gap in the curtains, cutting a slice of orange through the darkened room. Hermione was too tired to move, too tired to care. She looked over, expecting to see a tall, dark figure standing there sneering at her. Rather, she saw no one.

She sat up, pulling the duvet with her, wincing as her temples throbbed. Scurrying up beside the bed, she saw, was a tiny little elf, carrying a silver platter. Her heart swelled with gratitude when Calico set the tray down on her bed and looked at her solemnly.

"Mistress Granger needs to eat," she squeaked. "Master Malfoy is angry, but he should not stop Mistress Granger from being properly nourished."

Hermione's hand froze halfway in the process of reaching for a bit of toast. "Lucius didn't tell you to bring me breakfast?" she asked numbly.

The elf's long fingers curled briefly in the fabric of her freshly pressed pillowcase-dress, wrinkling the smooth white linen. Her huge green eyes bugged, and then she ran for the fireplace, grabbing a heavy, iron poker before Hermione could stop her.

She watched in sick horror as the elf brought the poker down hard on her head, crying out in pain and stumbling to her knees. Calico stood shakily and raised the fire poker again and again, hitting herself wherever she could reach: her head, her nose, her feet, her chest… Hermione couldn't move. She couldn't unfreeze her hand from hovering in midair above the toast. She couldn't force her stiff vocal cords to order the elf to stop. She just watched, horrified, as everything she'd ever believed about the unjust treatment of house elves was proven to be true.

Calico finally looked up, her eyes glistening with unshed tears and her nose red and swollen. "Mistress is not eating," she squeaked, shocked.

Hermione forced her hand to close around the piece of toast, not taking her eyes off the elf as she took a tiny bite out of the corner. Crumbs fell down her front and she closed her eyes as a now-familiar wave of nausea rose up in her throat. She took a few, deep breaths before taking another tentative bite, trying not to gag at the overwhelming sweetness of her favorite orange marmalade. She breathed through her mouth and reached for the coffee. Her hand shook so hard that she spilled the hot drink onto her lap and yelped in pain, tears springing in her eyes as she jumped up and the tray went flying, glass shattering everywhere.

Hermione moaned and shot off toward the bathroom as Calico hurried forward to clean up the mess. Aware of a sharp pain in her palm where a shard of broken china had sliced into her, the girl rooted frantically through the cupboard, searching for band-aids or gauze, but stopped and veered to the toilet instead when the sight of the blood running down her arm made her stomach heave.

Bellatrix came in only a few minutes later, tripping over the boxes and toiletries Hermione had pulled to the floor in her haste to find adhesive bandages.

"_Merlin_, Granger." She scowled, kicking a box out of her way. "You'd think it was impossible for you to hold down food."

Hermione winced as the corner of the box dug into her calf. She picked it up, and her eyes widened.

"How long have I been here?"

"What?" Bellatrix snatched the box and, seeing what it was, dropped it like it had burned her.

"How long?" Hermione repeated numbly.

"Five weeks on Wednesday."

Both women looked at the box of tampons like it had turned into something repulsive.

"You haven't –"

"No."

"When was your last?"

"Two weeks before you came to get me."

"You're three weeks late?"

Hermione nodded mutely. Oh, Merlin. It was all starting to make sense now. But… But… Lucius' child? She hadn't planned on getting pregnant until she was much older, when she had a stable job and at least a steady partner – preferably, she would be a Mrs. by then. Maybe a Mrs. Weasley.

She hadn't imagined finding out she might be pregnant while hunched over a toilet, bleeding, at the feet of Bellatrix Lestrange.

"Maybe you're just late. Stress can make you irregular." The woman's voice was shaky – nervous instead of scornful for once.

_I'd have to raise the baby surrounded by evil bastards._ "I'm never irregular," Hermione snapped, staggering to her feet. She moved to the sink and rinsed her bleeding hand, not watching the water run red.

"I guess I'll have to make an appointment at St. Mungo's," Bellatrix said, still sounding stunned. "Just to make… sure before you tell Lucius."

"Lucius…" Hermione froze, fear flooding her.

"For God's sake, Granger, pull yourself together," Bellatrix snapped, regaining her composure. "It's your own damn fault you're such a slut. Go get dressed and I'll call a Healer. Lucius is at work and he'll be gone until dinner." She swept away and Hermione stood, staring after her for a long moment. Then she shut off the water and dried her hand on her shirt, going back to her room.

She wasn't surprised to find the mess cleaned up and her bed made as freshly as if she hadn't tossed and turned in it all night. She pulled off her sleeping shorts and stepped into the dark, tight jeans, then pulled off her top and found herself staring down at her flat stomach.

Images flashed through her head of Lucius pounding into her roughly, running his hands over her full, taut belly, digging his fingers bruisingly into it when he came, and then kissing it gently like he did that damn birthmark. Or of her – his – child, a miniature Draco, growing up with as cold and distant of a father as his brother had.

Oh God. If there really was a baby, she'd be the mother of Draco's half-sibling. She pulled her shirt on quickly before she could think more about that, before she was sick again.

Bellatrix came in a few minutes later and looked at Hermione frostily. "I can't get you an appointment until Wednesday," she said bitterly, like it was Hermione's fault that Saint Mungo's was booked. "I won't tell Lucius now if you don't stall telling him later. He's got meetings all day that day."

Hermione stared at Bellatrix in shock. "Are you being nice to me?" It was Monday. Wednesday seemed like very far away. The idea of waiting on tenterhooks for almost three days was unbearable. Now that the idea was in her head, she knew that it would keep nagging at her.

"Yeah, well, don't let it go to your head." Bellatrix sneered weakly, her eyes flashing to Hermione's stomach. There was something in her face – something unfamiliar. Something sad. Almost like longing.

Hermione bit her lip, wanting to ask, but afraid to. Bellatrix wound a strand of hair around her finger, still eying Hermione with a sort of thoughtful regret. They looked at each other for a long moment, and then Bellatrix sighed, untangling her finger. "You really should try to eat a proper breakfast. I hear underfeeding yourself isn't good for the baby. I –" She swallowed hard. "I'll send a house elf up later."

And then she was gone.

Dinner was a tense affair. Bellatrix, amazingly, kept her word and didn't say a thing to Lucius. But it was all Hermione had thought about that day – and she could tell that Bellatrix had been dwelling on it, too. The two of them arrived in the dining room at the same time, and they shared a brief look across the long table before Lucius came in. Hermione barely dared to breathe as she kissed him lightly and bowed her head. It wasn't until he sat down and indicated that she do the same that she dared relax slightly. There was no consternation on his face.

"I trust you had a good day, My Lord," she said cautiously, as the house elves started moving around the table with food and drink.

He looked at her smoothly, without a trace of suspicion in his cold, grey eyes. "It was dull, as usual. Nothing compares to being at home in such charming company."

Bellatrix turned what sounded like a laugh into a cough as Hermione, to her mortification, felt her cheeks flushing. Absently, she put a hand over her wine goblet when an elf came around with the bottle, the way she'd been taught to do in Muggle restaurants when she didn't care for a drink. The elf passed her by, and Lucius looked at her questioningly.

"No wine, Granger?"

Her mistake hit her, but it was too late for her to recover. She glanced across the table and saw that Bellatrix looked almost amused. She hadn't expected the woman's civil streak to be lasting, but it would have been nice to have a bit of backing.

"I've been wondering," she invented, "if drinking more wine than I'm used to is what is making me sick. If it's quite alright with you, I'd like to try going off it for a bit, just to see if it helps."

His face slid into a smooth mask of careful confusion, but no concern whatsoever. "You're still getting ill? I'd thought that yesterday was merely a result of your encounter with the Dark Lord. You wouldn't be the first to throw up after meeting him."

She wondered briefly if he'd thrown up the first time Voldemort had turned his wand on him for a little slipup. She decided she didn't want to know. "No, My Lord. I was ill again this morning."

Something flashed across his face briefly, before he could pull his mask back on. It was almost like concern, or fear. No matter which it was, something dawned on him, and he frowned politely. "Did you ask for wine at breakfast time?"

"My Lord, I –" Stuttered. She stuttered. It was the best she could do.

"Oh, Lucius." Bellatrix sniffed derisively. "If she doesn't want any, all the better. Would you really waste your fine wine on a Mudblood? As if she hasn't taken more than enough of your fine food for her unfit self. Don't push anything on her. Undeserving. Ungrateful."

Hermione looked up briefly in thanks, but Lucius waved Bellatrix away. "I've told you how I feel about your attitude, Bella. Miss Granger is my guest here, and she isn't to be treated like anything lower than that. If you can't accept that the two of you are both guests in my house, and that you, too, must adhere to my rules, you may as well just leave. Your position here is no more permanent than hers. I will not have you speaking to my guests that way. Please apologize."

"Sorry." She spat it out, like the word was poisonous.

"Miss Granger, will you be having wine this evening?" Lucius asked evenly.

"No, My Lord. Thank you though."

He watched her thoughtfully as she picked at her food, and she wondered how much more he was seeing than he let on. It made her nervous. Bellatrix's eyes were on her throughout the meal, too, cold and unforgiving. She gnawed at the inside of her cheek. She shouldn't have been feeling gratitude toward Bellatrix Lestrange, but she was in fact tremendously indebted to the woman. She knew that Bellatrix wasn't likely to let her forget it.

Hermione passed the next two nights much in the same way as she had spent the last. Lucius didn't come into her room once, which made her nervous. He'd barely spoken to her since dinner that night, and she was afraid that either he suspected something, or there was something else horrible going on that she should be aware of. She had a hard time sleeping again, mostly because she had so much on her mind. She was very glad when Wednesday came, but she woke shaking with fear.

In the time she'd had to think, she realized that she was pretty sure what she was going to find out that day. All the signs pointed to it. There was just no way it couldn't be… She just wondered how she would react when she heard the news confirmed aloud, or when she saw it in print. Or how Lucius would react when she had to tell him.

Bellatrix actually knocked when she came in, and she stayed sitting on the end of the bed while Hermione dressed. She looked up at the ceiling, twisting her fingers together while the girl stumbled into her clothes.

"So, I'll be going with you," she said to the ceiling. "And I'm going to have to take a few liberties with your identity, you understand. You're publically recognized as Lucius'… consort. Any publicity over this visit will cause a scandal. So we'll have to be very… covert about it."

Hermione nodded. She'd expected that. "What do I have to do?"

Bellatrix looked down at her hands. She toyed with a delicate, golden band with a rather indecent green stone set into it. "Lucius is going to kill both of us," she said dryly. "I'm blaming it all on you, Mudblood."

Hermione reached for the ring. "I know. I'll pay for it later. It's not like you'll even have to go out of your way to torture me for any of this."

"Take care of it," Bellatrix said, handing over the ring reluctantly. "It was Ciss – Narcissa's." A shadow passed over her face at the mention of her dead sister, and Hermione had to remind herself over and over that the woman sitting in front of her was an evil witch who hated her guts, not a misunderstood woman who'd gotten the short end of every straw that life had presented her. "He'll know it's missing almost before you have it on."

"He misses her." Hermione slipped the ring onto the third finger of her left hand, and shivered as the cool metal slid smoothly over her skin. Even though it was a tiny, delicate thing, it felt like deadweight on her hand. She twisted it uncomfortably. The silky gold felt like it was chaffing her. And yet, it fit perfectly.

"Yes."

"So, what…" Hermione frowned down at the ring again. There was something not right about it. Maybe like she was feeling the darkness that surrounded its former owner. "What exactly does this mean? Am I supposed to be… engaged to Lucius? Or married?" She shuddered.

Bellatrix pressed her lips together like she was holding back a volley of insults. Hermione was touched. "You're signed on to the patient list as 'Hermione Malfoy.' You're not to answer questions about who the father is."

Message understood: it was either Lucius or Draco. And Malfoy gold would buy silence.

"Do we need to go over proper Malfoy behavior?"

"No, thank you," Hermione said, as haughtily as she could. "I'd personally prefer not to associate myself even with the name, but considering the circumstances I suppose I'll make do with what I can. By the way, I'm not sure this color of green suits me. I thought you could do better, Bellatrix, but I understand that you did the best that you could under short notice."

"Very funny. Are you eating breakfast?"

"I don't think I will today," Hermione said carefully, trying to keep her head high. She remembered meeting Narcissa Malfoy only once, but the woman had been incredibly composed, and ridiculously haughty, almost self-righteous. If she weren't scared shitless, she might actually be able to have fun with this.

Bellatrix sighed. "Alright. Come on, then. We'll be late."

Hermione smoothed her clothes – which were, for once, not disgusting. Instead, the blazer and skirt were dignified, almost modest. The well-tailored grey material was almost too thick, and it felt boxy compared to what she was used to. And they smelled like another woman's stuffy perfume. Narcissa's old clothes, even? Bellatrix straightened the knot of her strangely scented scarf, and pulled back, flicking her wand toward the fireplace. She held out a pot full of sparkling powder, and Hermione looked up at her, amused.

"Floo?" she said drily, taking a handful of Floo Powder.

"Look." Bellatrix took a pinch of the powder herself, and closed the jar, putting it back on the hearth. "I'm not any more comfortable with any of this than you are, but what I do know is that Lucius will kill both of us if anything happens to the ba – the potential baby – before he can decide himself what to do with it. I don't know exactly what Apparating will do to you right now, and I'm in no mood to try, if only because I don't want your vomit all down my robes. Okay?"

"Fine," Hermione sniffed, shifting the ring on her finger again. "You can go first."

Bellatrix tossed her pinch of Floo Powder into the fire, and the flames roared green. She stepped into the fireplace, and looked at Hermione, cocking her eyebrow. "Be sure you do follow, Mudblood." She smoothed her robes. "St. Mungo's."

Hermione stepped into the empty fireplace, and opened her hand. The fire that licked up around her was pleasantly warm, if not distractingly green. "St. Mungo's," she said, closing her eyes and tucking her elbows, remembering Mrs. Weasley's cautions fondly. It was Molly who had taught her about Floo systems… She squeezed her eyes tighter shut so that she wouldn't start crying, and so that she wasn't tempted to look down when she started spinning.

Bellatrix was damn wrong. Floo Powder was a bloody bad idea for someone with a delicate stomach.

She staggered to a stop in an unfamiliar fireplace, and unfamiliar hands helped her out gently, gripping her tightly when she stumbled over her own feet. When she was sure she was steady, she shrugged off the hands and looked up at the green-robed Healer who had helped her out. The words to thank him were on the tip of her tongue, but she caught Bellatrix's warning expression at the last minute so she swallowed them back and nodded curtly, flicking an invisible piece of soot off the shoulder of her jacket.

"M-miss, er, Mrs…" he stammered.

"Ms. Malfoy will do," she said coolly, ignoring the nerves that twisted in the pit of her stomach. Yes, she was glad she hadn't eaten breakfast that day.

"Ms. Malfoy…" The Healer said the words like they burned his tongue. She looked up and was mildly surprised to see Ernie McMillan poking his head out of the robes – and realized they were the robes of a full Healer, but only of an apprentice.

"McMillan."She had to say his name like it was dirty, and she certainly felt disgusted enough with herself to screw up her face properly. She looked over to Bellatrix. "I assume we do have an appointment, Bellatrix? I didn't come to exchange conversation."

Bellatrix's lips twitched slightly. "I was under the impression that someone was supposed to be meeting us to show us to your room, but apparently this is the best they can come up with. Until you can stop sputtering, McMillan, we'll be seeing our own way out." She reached for Hermione's arm, but Ernie stepped forward.

"I'm perfectly capable, Madam Lestrange," he said bitterly, shooting curious glances at Hermione. "Forgive me. I was merely shocked to see you here. I thought for sure that your family would have its own Healers on staff."

Hermione swallowed convulsively, and Ernie looked at her again. She looked away, twisting the ring on her finger.

"If you ladies would please follow me," he mumbled, starting off toward the tall, winding staircase.

Bellatrix climbed the stairs behind Hermione, keeping a close eye on the girl. Hermione tried to climb smoothly and regally, feeling ridiculous as she kept her head high and trailed her hand smoothly over the railing. They crossed a few people who were going down, and all of them looked at their little trio curiously. She glared back at them, and out of the corner of her eye, saw Bellatrix fingering her wand menacingly.

Ernie led them to a private room just off the stairs on the second floor and looked up at Bellatrix speculatively, trying not to look like he was afraid of her. Hermione noticed through carefully narrowed eyes the way his face paled and his hands shook slightly.

"Madam Lestrange, there is a strict patient confidentiality clause…"

"McMillan, I'm not sure you see the dilemma," Bellatrix said sweetly. "Ms. Malfoy is family now, and I am her official escort today."

Ernie swallowed hard. "Might I have a word in private with Ms. Malfoy, first?" he said, his voice quavering. "I'll be done before the doctor gets here."

Bellatrix looked questioningly at Hermione, who pushed all her self-respect away and looked down at Ernie icily. "McMillan, I cannot imagine anything that you would need to say to me that you cannot say in front of Bellatrix. As she rightly pointed out, we are family now, and she is in fact my escort. Now, unless you really want to have this discussion with the two of us, I suggest that you go and fetch the doctor right away. We're on a bit of a tight schedule today, and we don't really need to spend any more time than is necessary waiting around here with overly nosey Hufflepuffs."

Ernie looked as hurt as if she'd smacked him. Bellatrix pretended to pick at her nails, looking bored.

"I'll go get Healer Johnston right away then, Ms. Malfoy. Madam Lestrange." He opened the door to the examination room, then left quickly as soon as they'd filed in.

Hermione sank down onto the exam table, her knees trembling. "I'm such a horrible person," she moaned.

"Sit up straight," Bellatrix snapped, slouched agonizingly casually into the chair against the wall. "God's sake,_ Malfoy_, we wouldn't want you bringing the family shame after you just blended in so beautifully, would we?"

"Shut up," Hermione mumbled, sitting up so straight that her back popped. Both women winced at the sound.

There was a soft tap at the door, and then it swung open. A squat, bald man with glasses and a seemingly permanent frown stepped inside and closed the door behind him. If he was surprised or frightened by Bellatrix's presence, the only way that he showed it was looking away from her quickly, his eyes going instead to Hermione with a probing curiosity.

"Ms. Malfoy?" he asked, looking down at his file.

She nodded curtly, too afraid to speak.

"I'm afraid we don't have you on file yet…"

"It doesn't matter for today," Bellatrix said, glaring. "It's just a quick check up, you see. We don't have time for formalities." She shifted in her seat so that he could hear the clinking of money in her pocket. "I'll remind you that my brother-in-law has been more than generous in his donations to St. Mungo's over the years."

Healer Johnston pushed up his glasses with his index finger and nodded absently, looking over at Hermione again. "What seems to be the problem, Ms. Malfoy?"

Heat flushed through her whole body, staining her cheeks, her neck, flooding all the way down from the roots of her hair to the tips of her toes. She struggled to maintain her composure. "I have reason to believe that I may be pregnant."

"Mphf." He scribbled something down on the parchment he held. "When was your last menstrual cycle?"

"It ended seven weeks ago," she said flatly, looking at the wall, at the floor, at the ring on her finger, anywhere but at him.

"And have you been sexually active?"

She braced herself. "I thought that much would have been clear."

"Touché," he murmured, noting something. "Other than missing your cycle, have you been experiencing other symptoms of pregnancy?"

"Erm." Oh God, this was awkward. Bellatrix still lounged in her chair, looking like she was fighting back a laugh. "I've been… having trouble keeping food down," she said, as delicately as she could. "Eating makes me feel quite nauseous."

"Any unusual fatigue, or soreness of breasts?" the Healer asked, sounding clinically detached.

"Actually, I've been having trouble sleeping for the past three nights. It takes me a long time to fall asleep, and when I do it is a light sleep."

"Is it because of physical discomfort, or are you too mentally active to sleep?"

"I've – I've had a lot on my mind lately."

His frown deepened at this, and he turned to Bellatrix. "Has she been eating well, Madam?" he said, almost accusingly.

"Not really." Bellatrix flipped her hair. "She's been too nauseous to eat more than a few bites at any given meal. I think she eats just enough to get by, but it isn't much."

Healer Johnston looked at Hermione sternly. "I can give you potions for the nausea, but if there is a baby you need to be getting as much nourishment as you can. Even when it sounds unappetizing, eating is important. Do you understand?"

She nodded blankly.

"If I might ask, who is the potential father?"

Hermione licked her lips, groping for an answer, trying to ignore the revulsion that swept through her. Lucius or Draco. What a choice. "I would think it would be obvious, Johnston. If it's not, then I seriously question your capability for this job."

His face closed. "I was merely curious," he said, in his detached, professional voice. "Some men or some families have more genetic potency than others. It might help to know your chances if we knew who the father was."

"Again, I thought it would be clear. My surname is Malfoy now."

He looked at her ring finger quickly, and bit his upper lip when he saw Narcissa's engagement ring. "Alright, Ms. Malfoy. I'm going to do a few charms that will test your body for the presence of another human. If this bubble" – he held out a little glass ball, and she too it, confused – "glows green, then you're pregnant. If it flashes red, you're not." He smiled at her tightly. "Clearly."

She gripped the little ball tightly. It reminded her forcibly of a Remembrall: clear glass, with delicate etchings in the sides. She recognized them as ancient runes, but she didn't really feel like deciphering them. She could easily guess at their meanings. Life, fertility, women… She held it so tightly that she was sure it would break – it looked like a fragile thing – but it remained mercifully solid and whole in her hand as Johnston started to mumble incantations.

And then it started to change. A curl of smoke started at the bottom of the ball, and drifted lazily to the top, coiling off to fill the glass. She squeezed her eyes shut tight, afraid to see the smoke turn colors, but heard Bellatrix's gasp.

"Congratulations, Ms. Malfoy," the Healer said. She could hear the smile in his voice. "Would you like to know the sex?"

Hermione's whole body was shaking. "No," she choked. She forced her eyes open and stared at the swirls of grass-green smoke that filled the ball. She forced it back toward Johnston. "No, thank you. Please take this."

He took it, and his crinkled eyes softened a little. "I take it the baby was a surprise."

"Bellatrix, can we please leave?" She fought to keep her voice level, to keep it from squeaking or cracking, because she knew that if she let her control slip even a bit now she would break down into a blubbering mess.

Bellatrix started to stand, but the Healer waved her back down. "You need to be back here in a month for a follow up appointment, Ms. Malfoy. I'll arrange with the receptionist downstairs to get you a set of potions to take for nausea or aches and pains. And the due date…" He looked at the ball that sat, small and innocent, in his heavy hand. "February 1."

"Please," Hermione whispered. "Please can we leave now?" There was a heavy weight in the pit of her stomach that made it hard to breathe. Her throat was being squeezed shut painfully, and she had to gasp for air. Her heart barely felt like it could beat anymore – it had turned to ice.

They made their way quickly downstairs, where Bellatrix gave the receptionist an absurd amount of money in exchange for a bag full of potions. They Flooed back to the Manor, and then looked at each other in awkward silence.

"So…" Hermione said nervously, frightened by the sudden blankness in the woman's eyes.

"So Lucius will be home in ten minutes. I suggest that you figure out how to tell him yourself, because I'm not helping you." Bellatrix snarled and shoved the potions at Hermione. "These are yours. Do try not to throw up or anything." She stormed away.

Hermione wished more than ever that she weren't locked up here, confined to her rooms and to the library. She wanted her wand, she wanted a newspaper, she wanted to see Harry and Ron. She couldn't just sit, or pace. Unacceptable. It would give her time to think.

She didn't want to think.

She went to the bathroom and lined the potions in careful rows on the shelves, making sure that they were alphabetized and lined up exactly straight. She'd just put the last one in place when a dry clearing of a throat behind her alerted her to Lucius' presence. She stiffened.

"My Lord."

Turning around slowly, she saw that he was looking at her with a blank face that meant he was furious. She saw his eyes move over Narcissa's clothes, and Narissa's ring. His eyes stayed for a long time on the ring before he held out his hand.

"I think I'll be taking that back, Granger."

She slipped it off with trembling fingers and dropped it into his palm. He held it gently for a moment before putting it into a pocket deep in his robes. His eyes ran over the shelf of potions.

"What is the meaning of this?"

"My Lord, Bellatrix took me to St. Mungo's today –"

"I'd noticed," he said glacially. "I had seven memos on my desk asking if I was aware that you were out of the house."

She swallowed and nodded. "Please forgive me. I wanted to make sure you had the full story."

"Go on."

"You know I've been sick for the past few days, and I've been having trouble sleeping. On Monday, Bellatrix and I realized that my period was three weeks late."

His already stiff posture became, if possible, stiffer. "And?"

"And I'm… pregnant."

Lucius was silent for a long moment, and half a dozen emotions flickered across his face, gone before she could identify them. His eyes burned holes in her, and he finally settled on furious. His fingers curled over his wand and she knew it was coming. She deserved it. She'd ruined everything.

"_Crucio_!"

Hermione had never known more pain in her life. Time slowed agonizingly as a million knives cut into her, as ever piece of her was torn apart and shredded into a million bits. The five seconds that it lasted were five eternities as she screamed and writhed on the hard, unforgiving marble floor.

And then it stopped. He was gone, and she was curled up on the floor. She picked herself up gingerly and stumbled out into the bedroom, where she fell onto the bed limply. She didn't cry – not that night. She'd done enough crying. She just curled up until, at last, she was able to sink into a dreamless sleep.

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**Thank you all you lovely darlings for your lovely reviews already. Best reviewer gets the next chapter dedicated to him/her and we all know why next chapter is super special. There's already some really good ones up... It's going to be hard to choose. :)**

**I LOVE YOU ALL! You make my day, every day.  
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	7. Absolutely not?

**I apologize for the wait. Both Hymnophile and I have been exercising the controversial right to having a life outside fanfiction - I know, it's tough. This is actually the uneditted chapter but I figured you guys have been waiting long enough. When Hymnophile gets back to me with the beta-ed version, I'll post any changes necessary. All mistakes are mine. I just felt like you guys deserved a special little Draco-shaped chapter. And I know you hate being kept waiting. **

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**Chapter Six**

**Absolutely... not?**

The past year had not been kind to Draco Malfoy. He hadn't expected much after he'd completely botched the Dumbledore job. That was supposed to be his initiation, his defining moment. And then he went and lost it completely. Voldemort had _not_ been happy when Severus had shown him the memory of what had happened up on the tower. Draco still had the scars.

Things had been very different for a certain Malfoy ever since. While Voldemort had put his father into a flattering position that would keep Lucius _right_ under his nose, he'd shoved Draco far, far down the ladder. Honestly, there was nothing fulfilling about filing paperwork in the Head Court of Muggleborn Trials. One could forgive him if he was a little bit bored, and just a lot a bit sick of it all.

Well. A normal person could. Unfortunately for him, Draco didn't spend time with normal people. His coworkers mocked him openly, taking every chance they could to rub his failure in his face. One of the esteemed Malfoy brood, fallen so far down, stuck here filing lawsuits with the rest of them. But he didn't care so much about them. If there was one thing his mother had taught him before her… death, it was that he should never let the ignorance of lesser… wizards get the best of him. He was a Malfoy. He was inherently better than the rest of them. The memories of his mother impressing this knowledge into him allowed him to keep his chin up and his back straight, and to endure their _idiocy_ as best he could.

Some people, though, weren't so easy to ignore.

Aunt Bella, for example.

She seemed to blame him for his mother's death, even though the fault was all his father's. She blamed the family misfortune on him, pinpointing the day that he had failed them all. According to Aunt Bella, that was the day that he himself had condemned Narcissa to death.

"Dr_a_co," she would croon. "You're not up_set_, are you? B_or_ed with this life? How do you think Mummy would feel about that, hmm? Do you think she'd want you _was_ting your days moping, and being un_gra_teful for her… _sacrifice_?"

He would grit his teeth. It would not do to attack her – she would wipe the floor with his ass. He had to sit. And endure… her. Gods, he hated her. He hated the way her hot breath felt on his throat when she leaned in too close to whisper to him. He hated the whiney edge in her voice when she mocked people. He hated her sick, blind devotion to everything that the Death Eaters stood for.

He hated that that thought would ever cross his head. Draco, of course, still supported the Death Eaters. Ardently. He just… Sometimes, certain things… Well.

His father didn't like him thinking like that.

He clearly remembered the one time he'd tried to talk to Lucius. It was over one of their awkward "family dinners" – the ones full of stilted conversation and forced laughter. Draco had only had his job for a week, and he'd been assigned to work under Crabbe Senior.

"It's humiliating, Father," he'd said, playing with the oyster shell that kept slipping out from under his fingers and skidding across the plate. "I know I fucked things up with Dumbledore, but surely the Dark Lord knows I did the best I could. He can't _really_ expect me to work under that bumbling buffoon? I swear, Crabbe Senior is even worse than his son, and you know that's saying something."

Lucius had put down his fork wearily, after glaring at Bellatrix for her to keep her mouth shut. "Draco, the Dark Lord knows that if you had really given your mission your all, you would have found a way to kill Dumbledore. You should be glad that putting you in such a low position is the worst he's doing to you. Things could have been much worse." He blotted cream sauce from his lips with a linen napkin. "You should be grateful to have your life and your sanity."

Draco took an impossible sip of wine through tight lips. "I still don't feel like I deserve this much of a demotion. He gave _you_ a second chance, Father. Why couldn't he have made _me_ Minister of Magic?"

"Because he trusts Lucius _far more_ than he trusts a scrawny little boy," Bellatrix said roughly, jabbing at her chicken with her fork. "You can't even kill a man, Dr_a_co. Why would he trust _you_ with such a _high_ position?"

He bit back the words to scold her for baby talking to him. Instead, he tightened his lips further and said nothing.

"Draco," Lucius said pleasantly. "Your mother sacrificed a lot to get you where you are today. It would be an insult to her memory if you should squander this new chance of proving yourself. She _died_ for this. Do you want that to be for nothing?"

Between Bellatrix being nasty and his father playing the guilt card whenever it fit his fancy, Draco wasn't too thrilled with his family. For once, he didn't take ridiculous pride in being a Malfoy – not if this was what being a Malfoy entailed. And separating himself from the family a bit forced him to see things in a different light.

Fortunately, he hadn't had to see much – if any – of either of them in little more than a month. He'd pass his father in the halls of the Ministry sometimes, or see one of them on the front page of the Prophet, but in general, their paths didn't cross.

Not until Saturday afternoon.

Draco came in that afternoon worn out from working overtime. He was nursing a sore thumb and bruised pride from the paper cut he'd gotten while filing. He hated working on weekends – especially when he was in charge of the filing cabinets. He kicked in his door, cursing to himself, with the intention of digging through the bathroom cupboard for some essence of dittany to dress the wound. Instead, he stopped in the middle of the kitchen and sighed in irritation.

Dickens, Bellatrix's tawny owl, was sitting perched on the back of one of his chairs, staring at him balefully like he shouldn't have kept it waiting. Clenched in his steel grey beak was an envelope of ridiculously heavy parchment with Draco's name calligraphied on the front in Bella's handwriting. He stuck out a hand reluctantly, and Dickens snapped at his fingers as he took the letter.

To his surprise, it was his father's tidy handwriting that read, _Draco. Please do us the favor of gracing us with your presence at dinner tonight at 8. I may have found you a wife._

He crumpled the letter and threw it at the wall. Dickens hooted reproachfully.

"Damn bird." Draco glared at it. "What, did they ask you for a reply? Just fly home. It's not like I have a choice anyway." He opened the window wide and looked at the bird pointedly until it flew out.

_I may have found you a wife_. He picked up the parchment and smoothed it on the table, narrowing his eyes at his father's careful hand. He'd long suspected – and he was beginning to gather proof – that Lucius was slowly going insane. After everything he'd been through because of the man, he was still one of Lord Voldemort's most faithful supporters. He regurgitated pureblood nonsense – mania – more than anyone else that Draco knew. Ever since both Malfoy heirs had… lost standing, Lucius had become obsessed with finding Draco an eligible partner, so that he could raise perfect pureblood babies as soon as possible.

Draco thought it was ridiculous. But he would go to dinner. He always would. He hated that he was so compelled to oblige his father's will, that really, he had no control over his life. And he hated that Lucius told him at least he should do it in memory of his mother. Narcissa would not have approved of any of this.

***

It had been exactly three days, six hours, and forty-three minutes since anyone other than Calico had looked at her, spoken to her, or touched her. She spent all her time locked in her rooms – pacing, sometimes, or staring blankly into space. Three times a day, the door opened and closed just enough for Calico to set a tray of food on her table, and three times a day Calico carried away a tray that was almost untouched.

Sometimes, she sat in the hard, wooden chair at her desk and fought back tears. Her hands would go instinctively to her still-flat stomach and the thought of it bulging out huge and unfamiliar stuck her hard. She wondered if Lucius would keep her hidden away from him so that he wouldn't have to see that – he wouldn't have to look at her and see just how far she truly had fallen, and see how filthy, how shameful she was (because of him). God knows he wouldn't want the Mudblood scum dirtying his house further.

She didn't know why the shame struck her so hard, but it did. It had been apparent since the day she'd told Lucius. There was no other way she could have interpreted his reaction. He was disgusted by her, and he treated her accordingly. For some reason, every time she thought about how "filthy" she was, she found it harder to keep the tears back. They rolled silently down her face, but she refused to make a sound. Not a sniffle escaped her.

A new routine formed. She woke up every morning and vomited. She drank her coffee to wash down the taste of the anti-nausea potion, and ignored her breakfast. She let herself wonder about Harry and Ron, and then she tried for a good half hour not to cry. Calico would come and beg her – if only for the baby's sake – to eat lunch. She would pick at it, then pace and sit, pace and sit, until the dinner she would choke down half of. And then she sank into bad dreams.

In a way, she _missed_ Lucius. Even though the thought of him and his disgusting hands made her nauseous, her body, so used to human touch, craved him. A few times, she woke in the middle of the night to find her body on fire with need. And heat would flood her cheeks when she saw what she'd become – really, no better than a cheap whore. Hermione Granger was better than that. Then, who was she?

If only Ron and Harry could see her now… The thought of them pierced her through excruciatingly. From the lack of boasting, she had to assume that they were still alive. But long days alone lead the imagination in strange, frightening places, and horrible scenarios unwound themselves during empty hours. She usually prided herself on being levelheaded, insusceptible to falling prey to such flights of fancy. Maybe it was the hormones.

Here she was. Pregnant, with Lucius _fucking_ Malfoy's baby.

For three days, six hours, and forty-three minutes, she waited helplessly as her fate was decided for her. Would she even be allowed to live? Would the baby? Lucius had been so, very angry…

And then the door had creaked open and an annoyed-looking Bellatrix waltzed in with a pile of packages.

It was foolish of Hermione's heart to leap at the sight of the Death Eater, but she was so happy to see another human face – even that of a woman who probably hated every particle of her being – that she could have hugged the older woman. Fortunately, Bellatrix gave her no chance to act so rashly. She set her pile down on the bedside table and turned, still sneering.

"Hello, Mudblood."

Hermione held her tongue; a force of habit.

"It would seem," the woman snarled, tearing a package open with her teeth, "that your Lord Malfoy has decided to let his plaything out for a bit. Does that make you happy?"

She shrugged one shoulder.

Bellatrix slapped her in the face and sent her stumbling backwards. She was sure her cheek would bruise. Lucius would be angry.

"If it is what my Lord Malfoy demands," she said tonelessly, picking herself back up. "May I ask what he has planned for me?" Nothing good, she was sure. Nothing that suited Bellatrix, either, if she was in this temper. She'd been almost human three days ago…

Bellatrix glared back but held her hands at her sides in tight fists, knowing the repercussions of marking Hermione further. "If I had my way, nothing at all." She finished tearing the packaging off an expensive set of bath soaps. "Undress. I'm supposed to draw you a bath. Have you been wearing those same clothes all this time?"

***

Draco felt faintly ill as he slipped through the ornate wrought iron gates that had been the doors to his personal prison in the summer times between Hogwarts terms. Lucius hadn't asked him to a family dinner in almost two months, and he hadn't missed being here at all. He had to force his feet down the narrow driveway, and he almost had a heart attack when one of his father's peacocks called from the bushes.

The Manor rose up in front of him, gloomy the slowly sinking sun silhouetted it. He climbed the sweeping staircase with leaden legs and forced his hand up to knock.

The door opened of its own accord and he stepped into the cool marble hallway with trepidation. There had never been anything particularly homey about the Manor. Growing up, he'd hated it. It was too big, too cold.

"In the drawing room, Draco," his father drawled. Draco let himself linger for a little longer, looking at his too-pale face in the gilted mirror above the hat stand. He bit his lip and smoothed his hair. It was just his father.

It was, in fact, just his father who waited for him in the drawing room, perched stiffly on a straight-backed green chair.

"Father."

"Draco."

Draco sank smoothly onto the couch. "Where is Aunt Bellatrix?" he said, surprised to see that there weren't any drinks on the coffee table. He could have used a shot of firewhisky.

"Bellatrix is occupied right now." Lucius picked an invisible piece of lint off his sleeve. "It was nice of you to join us tonight, Draco. I thought you might not be coming at all when Dickens came back without a reply. You do know you're late?"

Draco drummed his fingers on his knee. "Am I? I apologize. I trust you are well, Father."

Lucius' lips twitched into what, for the briefest of moments, looked like a frown. He glanced toward the drawing room door with what seemed like expectation. "Oh, yes. Quite well. And you?"

"I've been following your social life in the Prophet," Draco said, looking, too, at the empty doorframe. "I'm a bit surprised that you would invite the Mudblood into your home. Really, Father? I thought you had better taste than that." Rule number one in the Malfoy household: the more pureblood mentions, the better. Lucius liked it when Draco worked to sound haughty and arrogant. It was becoming of the Malfoy heir.

To his surprise, his father frowned more deeply at his words, and ran an elegant hand through his hair. "I think you'll find that I have extraordinary tastes, actually."

"I think you'll find that it's not nice to talk about people like that when they're just in the hallway," said an annoyed voice. Draco turned again and was startled to see Hermione Granger standing in the doorway, looking at his father with a mixture of apprehension and irritation. Behind her stood Aunt Bellatrix, who yanked one of Hermione's curls in annoyance, trying to get it to stay in place.

He had to admit that the mudblood looked surprisingly good in a strapless, sweeping dinner dress. Green. It set off her skin nicely.

Lucius rose, his brow furrowed in concern, and moved swiftly over to Granger, who shied away instinctively. He reached out for her hand, and, as Draco watched in interest, she stood on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek lightly. His father slid his fingers under her chin and forced her face up, angling it so that the light from the crystal chandelier fell upon the shadow on her cheekbone.

"What happened here?" he murmured, touching the bruise lightly. She winced, pulling her face away, and averted her eyes.

Bellatrix tried to slip into the room behind Hermione, but Lucius caught her arm roughly. "Bella, have we not had this conversation repeatedly?"

"Guess it slipped my mind," she said quickly, trying to dart over toward Draco. "Oh, do let go of me Lucius. It's not like it really matters."

"I'd hardly say it doesn't matter. We will discuss this later." He let go of her and turned back to Granger, pulling his wand from his sleeve. He passed the wand over her cheek, and the bruise faded. She touched her face gingerly, and he smiled at her.

"You look lovely tonight."

Her jaw tightened a fraction. "Thank you. As do you, My Lord."

"Miss Granger, did you notice that we have a guest?"

Granger whirled around and her eyes fell on Draco. She frowned slightly, and bit her lip. "Malfoy."

His stomach turned over. Disgust? Dislike? Nervous energy? "Mudblood."

"Now, now, Draco," Lucius said good-naturedly. "Miss Granger is right. That's no way to speak about guests. May I suggest that we all retire to the dining room? Now that we are finally all here, I expect the house elves will be ready for us, and it wouldn't do to keep them waiting." He took Herm – Granger's hand again and gestured to the door.

Bellatrix fell into step with Draco behind Granger and Lucius as they made their way out. "How is my favorite nephew?" she crooned, straightening the collar of his shirt.

He twitched in annoyance as her fingernails scraped against his throat gently. "I'm just fine, Aunt Bella," he said tersely. "I hope you've been well, too?"

She pouted. "Things have been very different around here lately," she whispered conspiratorially. "Ever since the mudblood came, your father has been acting very odd."

He frowned at the news as they entered the dining room, then groaned when he saw that the table had been set for a feast. It was going to be one of _those_ nights.

Lucius helped Granger into a seat, and she glared at him as she sat. He took the seat at the head of the table. Draco sat at the foot, and Bellatrix sat opposite Hermione. Draco fingered the tassel on the end of the table runner as the house elves brought in the first course.

"I trust you're over your nausea, Miss Granger?" Lucius said with forced nonchalance, picking up his fork.

Granger froze halfway in the process of reaching for her water goblet. "Yes, My Lord," she murmured finally. "The potions have been helping."

Draco watched curiously as his father nodded tersely. "Have you been sick, Granger?"

She scowled. "I'd rather not talk about it, _Malfoy_."

"Some manners would be nice," Bellatrix said lightly.

Granger took a moment to collect herself, then smiled sweetly. "I apologize. Yes, I have been ill. Thank you for asking, Draco." She stretched her hand all the way to meet her water goblet, and her fingers trembled.

"It's nothing," he murmured, ignoring his food completely. He looked at his father questioningly, but Lucius offered no insight.

"How is work going, Draco?" he asked instead.

Yes, it was going to be one of _those_ nights.

***

After the chocolate mousse had been cleared away and they all sat sipping tea, Lucius leaned back luxuriously in his seat. "Draco, I suppose you're wondering why I asked you here tonight."

The sugar cube slipped out of Draco's fingers and fell into the teacup with an inordinately large splash. He dried his burnt fingers on his napkin and nodded. "You're not one for cozy get-togethers, Father. Of course I was curious. You said something in your note about a… _wife_?"

Granger jumped in her chair and banged the table with her knee, rattling her cup and saucer. She looked at Lucius with wide, accusing eyes, but he ignored her.

"I might have," he admitted, also ignoring Bellatrix's snort of disgust. "I've been thinking, Draco. You've heard the stories. With" – he glanced at Granger – "our two favorite Order members stirring up trouble, things are getting too dangerous. It's about time that you produce an heir, just in case."

"You can't just –" Granger started.

Lucius looked at her sharply. "I just _can_. Draco, Hermione, how would you feel about a formal engagement?"

"Absolutely _not_!" Granger shrieked. "I can't believe you. _This_ is what you came up with?"

He shrugged unconcernedly. "You will do what I ask of you, Granger. I thought I'd made that very clear."

"I will not marry Draco to cover up for _your_ mistake," she growled. "Merlin, I knew you were an idiot but I didn't know you were _that_ much of an idiot. Did you ever stop to think about the consequences?"

Draco looked at his father in alarm, sure that he was about to snap on the mudblood for being a mouthy bitch. Instead, he looked at her, amused.

"You have to learn how to take responsibility for your own actions. You can't just dump things like this on Draco. That's… that's…" She looked like she was too outraged to find the right words. "That's disgusting. Repulsive."

"Dearest?" Lucius said good-naturedly. "I think Draco might like to know a bit more about this before you lose your head completely."

"_I'm _the one who's losing my head? I'm fairly sure you lost yours a good long time ago, _My Lord_. What you're implying is…"

"Hermione," he said, just the faintest note of warning in his tone. He would have slapped Draco for such insolence, but instead he just looked at her sternly before turning to his son. "Draco, I'm sure you're confused."

Confused didn't even begin to cover it. When had Father grown a heart? "Just a bit."

"Let me explain," Lucius said silkily. "I know you're aware that for some time now, Miss Granger has been my consort…"

"Right…"

"Consort." Bellatrix raised her eyebrows and glanced at Granger, who was turning red with mortification. "Consort isn't a very strong word, Lucius."

"It's better than some," he said quietly, taking Granger's reluctant hand and running his thumb over the back of it absently. "In any case, what happened happened. Call it what you like. But I'm sure that Draco, I don't need to remind you what happens when a man and a woman lie together."

Draco felt his whole face go as red as Granger's. The mudblood looked like she wanted to sink into the floor and disappear. "You got Granger pregnant?" he said in alarm. It seemed impossible that his father would be so careless.

Granger huffed in irritation. "He didn't just _get_ _me pregnant._ He's sticking it to us to deal with it."

Draco liked to consider himself at least moderately intelligent, and would have liked to believe that his brain was quick enough to jump straight to the right conclusion, but there were some things that just couldn't be true. He ran through what he knew again.

His father wanted him to marry Hermione Granger. Hermione Granger was pregnant with his father's baby. That would make the baby his brother or sister. And if he was married to Granger that would make him…

"Fuck no!" As soon as his father's calm, expectant face confirmed that what he was thinking could actually be _true_, he was faster to react than Granger. "You can't really expect us to…"

"But Draco, I think you'll find I can."

"But that's… that's _sick_!" he spluttered. "Father, it's your bastard, not mine. I'm not going to –"

"I told you it was a bad idea," Granger pressed hotly. "Not a bad idea. That's not strong enough. It's disgusting."

"Isn't that incest or something?" Draco said over her. "Father, you can't ask that of us. It might seem like an okay solution now, but have you thought about the consequences at all?"

"It's unrealistic of you to expect that Draco and I could handle that by ourselves," Hermione added. "It's unrealistic of you to expect that anything good could come of the baby." She took a deep breath. "My Lord, if I may be so bold, the only _good_ option is to abort it now, before…" She clenched her hand in her skirt, composing herself. "Before it's too late."

Lucius cleared his throat dryly. "I will not abort a Malfoy heir. I don't care if half of its blood will be filthy from you – it still has Malfoy blood and that's that."

"For God's sake, Father!" Draco roared. "Give it up! You still have me. Am I not good enough? Would you really rather have a halfblood bastard as the Malfoy heir? One of these days you're just going to have to realize that the Malfoy name isn't going to last forever."

"I did warn you, Lucius," Bellatrix said, amused, "that this wasn't a good idea."

"Since when would you let something like this happen?" Draco drummed his fingers on the tabletop in an angry staccato. "You didn't always let things like this slip through the cracks. How hard are contraceptive spells? Really? And there was a time when you would have aborted the baby without asking questions. If I didn't know better, I'd almost say you cared."

Granger winced. She'd gone very pale.

"Draco," Lucius said coolly, "I thought you knew better than to question me like that. I don't need to explain everything I do to you, but clearly, you can't handle that right now. Quite simply, I can't father a child right now – not in my position. I won't kill anyone with Malfoy blood. You should know that about me. I want the least scandal to come out of this as possible."

"So I was a ready-made candidate," he said bitterly. "I see how it is. What, is my reputation tarnished enough that you don't mind forcing the baby off on me?"

"Right," Granger sneered. "You can dump your whore on your loser of a son. Won't we be the _best_ of parents for the Malfoy heir?"

"Your condition doesn't keep me from punishing you," Lucius said conversationally.

Draco watched as a dozen different emotions flitted across Granger's face. Fear, disgust, intrigue, loathing, nausea. She closed her mouth abruptly and deflated in her seat. "Yes, My Lord," she murmured.

"That's better." He turned his attention back to his son. "Now, Draco, I think your part in this is relatively clear. You are to convince the Dark Lord that you both seduced and fell in love with Granger, and ask him permission to marry her."

"Why does he have to ask _Voldemort_?" Granger spluttered.

Bellatrix growled low in her throat. "Because, you idiot, the Dark Lord knows you only as Lucius' slut. If you suddenly go to be with Draco, he will know that something has happened. It's better to keep him informed of these sorts of things."

"So it won't bother him that he'll know you're lying when he uses Legilimancy on you? He's not stupid."

"Granger," Lucius said. "I think it's time for you to stop worrying your pretty little head about this. Everything will work out just fine."

From the look on Granger's face, Draco guessed that she didn't feel like any possible outcome would be "just fine." For once, he agreed with her.

"Good, so it's all settled," Bellatrix grumbled. "Draco and the mudblood can go see the Dark Lord tomorrow."

"Tomorrow?" Draco wanted to throttle his father. He couldn't just – Oh, but he was _Lucius Malfoy_. He could do whatever he bloody well pleased. Draco balled his hands into fists, his nails digging painfully into his palms.

"Tomorrow." His father looked at him with an aristocratically raised eyebrow, daring him to challenge him. Draco could almost hear the words, _What would your mother think of you now?_ "If that's not a problem."

He wanted to say yes. Yes, it was a fucking _big_ problem. His father wanted him to marry the mudblood tomorrow. _Your mother_. Swallowing his pride, he nodded, his stomach churning unpleasantly as he realized that he was, once again, falling victim to his father's whims. "It's not a problem," he said through clenched teeth."Not at all."

"Good." Bellatrix looked just as angry as Granger and Draco, but Draco was sure she had already given Lucius her two cents. "If we're all done, then…"

"Of course."

They all stood, some of them more reluctantly than others. Lucius took Granger's hand again as they walked to the door with Draco on their tail.

"It was good of you to come," he told his son stiffly, as he opened the front door. "I'm glad that we don't have any misunderstandings."

Draco looked at the long, elegant hand curled threateningly around Granger's soft fingers and felt a twinge of what might have been pity. He noticed the almost protective way that Lucius pulled the girl into him, and wondered if he'd ever felt so disgusted in his whole life. Looked at the two of them, knowing what they'd _done_… He shuddered and turned his eyes up to Granger's face.

She looked at him with wide eyes, and a mixture of curiosity and anger. She held herself awkwardly as far away from Lucius as was possible considering the way he held her.

He couldn't really be angry with her. She hadn't asked for this any more than he had. And she'd had to do unspeakable things with his _father_. He swallowed hard, aware of three pairs of eyes on him. "G – Hermione," he choked. "I'll see you tomorrow, then?"

Her eyes narrowed a fraction. "Draco."

He looked at Bellatrix, who was pouting in the background, and met his father's eyes for the briefest of moments. Then he hurried out the door.

He knew there was a reason he never liked it when Dickens came with a new letter for him.

* * *

**Ron: Harry, did you know that Dickens means "Devil?" Lily the Author spent literally twenty minutes shifting through pet-name websites to find Dickens.**

**Harry: How do you know that? That's creepy. You're channeling Hermione.**

**Ron: What? I don't know what you're talking about.**

**Harry: *sigh* Shut up and help me look for *message reducted because of spoiler content***

**Ron: Oohh... ****Harry, I miss Hermione. **

**Harry: Me too. I also miss being included in Lily's chapters. Don't you feel a little left out?**

**Ron: I think we should ask the readers if they want to see us...**

**Harry: I agree! I also would like to take this moment to thank mjmusiclover for "your brilliant review. I also love Hermione and Lucius, but everyone else hates it... Maybe we should make a joint luvin' fic! Lol. I think Lucius is one sexy bastard..." Whoa. That teaches me never to read things like that before I know what they say...**

**Ron: Did you say Hermione and Lucius? Lucius _Malfoy?_**

**Harry: Yes, Ron. She is his consort... damn. We've gotta do something.**

**Ron: I concur. Review if you want to save Hermione from that nasty man!**


	8. For As Long As We Both Shall Live

**A/N: Thank you to all of you for reviewing. As always, thanks to Emily and Hillary for being superstars. And Hil, watch for a PM sometime tomorrow. Also, much love to mjmusiclover for being cool and to JillianUnleashed for leaving lovely detailed reviews. A few of you commented on Lucius not using a contraceptive…? The way I see it, Malfoys aren't used to having to do things for themselves, so he just never **_**thought**_** about contraceptive charms. Narcissa got preggers once out of necessity and after that she took care of things. So he was an unreasonable arsehole (though admittedly sexy) as always and just assumed that he didn't have to worry. So then he was mad at himself and mad at Hermione and lost it and Crucioed the hell out of her. Btw – **_**Crucio**_** won't harm the baby. I know yankeerose was concerned.**

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**Chapter Seven**

**For As Long As We Both Shall Live**

_Honestly, it's not to me whether or not I think Daddy's gone batty. You're still a Malfoy and you still need to act your part. I swear to Salazar, Draco Malfoy, that if you're not ready promptly at eleven today, there will be hell to pay. You know what you have to do, and you __**will**__ do as you are told._

Draco moved slowly that morning, his ears still ringing from his aunt's Howler. He knew very well what was expected of him today, and all of it made him slightly sick. He ran a hand over his unshaven face and sighed. This might be the last time he sat at his kitchen table alone, a bachelor. The thought was horrible – almost as bad as the thought of what was expected of him. Oh, Merlin. He had to share his house… Not that it was a problem of being ready or not. The house elves had done their work well, and while he'd never live in the equivalent of The Manor, one could not accuse Draco of failing to live in style.

The last time he'd been this irritated with his life, he'd been the alleged "Prince of Slytherin" and all he'd had to do was write a letter to his father. Everything had fallen into place _exactly_ the way he wanted it after that. But he wasn't facing a bunch of moronic second-years, and he couldn't complain to his father. Especially not since his father had created the whole damn situation.

He shoved his empty coffee away from him, across the table, and forced his stiff limbs up to his bedroom, where he stood in the doorway for a moment surveying. He had three guest rooms, but he didn't doubt he knew exactly where Granger would be sleeping. It was improper – totally against the rules of a marriage (especially a Malfoy Marriage) – to make her sleep in a guest room. He didn't often make the bed, and he saw now that the house elves hadn't gotten to it yet. The covers on his side were still flipped down, revealing the silky green underbelly of the rumpled sheets. He wondered if Granger made her bed every morning. Would the elves still do it anyway? What if she wanted his side of the bed?

He groaned, pulling his pajama shirt over his head and stalking to the closet. The idea of having to share his _closet_ made him positively whimper with fright. His clothes… his clothes all in order by dye lot and by blend. He couldn't imagine anything pink, or maybe a thong flung across his neatly folded pants…

But Granger wouldn't wear pink, or thongs, or (horrors) pink lace thongs. He felt his cheeks grow hot when he realized he'd let his mind wander a bit too , he pulled his best white Oxford shirt out of a drawer and started to pull it on – first onto his right arm, then to his left.

When the movement of his left hand caught his eye, he sort of trailed off and left his shirt on half-hanging, looking more closely at his arm. He rarely looked at his Mark. He didn't like thinking about it. He wore long sleeves and tried to ignore it when he got dressed. But there was something striking about the way it stood out now, crisp black lines against smooth white flesh. He could still smell the burning of his skin when Voldemort had branded him. Bellatrix pretended to hold his hand soothingly while his arm caught fire. He'd screamed then.

He remembered quite clearly the day he'd found The Mark on his father. Draco had been little, playing in the tub with his favorite rubber snakes. Lucius' sleeves were getting all wet up until then, and he'd just unbuttoned them at the wrists to roll them up.

"What's that, Father?" young, naïve Draco had asked, jabbing – er, pointing at the scary black scribble on his father's arm. His father hissed and swatted him away, saying that it was none of his business, and that he would understand when he was much, much older.

Draco wasn't four anymore, and he still didn't understand the Dark Mark. He loathed it. And he still couldn't understand what about it actually made people want to follow it. He'd been stupid when he'd let Voldemort mark him as one of his own.

Well… No. He'd been grateful. Of course he'd been grateful. Because "Draco, the Dark Lord has given you all that's important in your life, and you should remember that he could take it all away just as quickly."

Draco finished putting his shirt on so that he wouldn't have to look anymore.

Narcissa had always gone out of her way to avoid looking at Lucius' Mark. He wondered what Granger would think. Not, of course, that he cared what Granger would think. But he remembered his horror at finding the Mark for the first time (nothing compared to the horror of seeing it branded into his own flesh) and he knew it would be rough. Especially if she'd been with his father.

He focused quickly on knotting his tie before his mind could wander too far down that dark, scary path.

Instead, he found himself thinking about the less-than-ideal alternative. The baby. His "child"-to-be. Or, if you rather, his half-brother. Draco was ninety percent sure that the baby would be a boy, if only because, nine times out of ten, Malfoy babies were born male. His grandfather had once told him in all seriousness that Malfoy men had superior sperm, specifically evolved to carry Y Chromosomes.

Draco didn't know how much contact he would have with the baby after it was born – or how much contact he would _want_ to have with the baby – but he knew one thing. No child deserved to have the kind of childhood that he'd had. Not even his father's bastard. In an ideal world, Granger's baby wouldn't grow up terrified of the brand on his "father's" arm, wondering in horror if at some age he would sprout his own. Or having to hear his "father" get up in the middle of the night and know he might not be back for hours, even days, and that when he came back there was a chance that he'd be bruised and battered from unspeakable activities. And have to fear that he might not come back at all.

No, Draco barely considered himself a prime candidate for fatherhood. He had no better a profession than had his own father, even if his ideals were a bit muzzy. But it's not like he'd ever try to claim Granger's brat his own. At least not seriously.

So it didn't really matter, did it?

***

"Granger."

"Bellatrix."

The two women stared at each other for a long moment, neither of them not quite sure what the other was expressing, but knowing that there was something there all the same. The intensity between them burned. Hermione fiddled a lock of hair nervously. Bellatrix sighed and tossed her head.

"Right. So." For the last time, she set Hermione's dress-of-the-day carefully down onto the bed, and Hermione had to lean up against the wall to keep standing. Her heart stopped at the same time as it started racing. Her stomach dropped and flip-flopped. Her breath came in short, quick gasps.

A _wedding_ dress. She wiped her suddenly sweaty hands on her pajama bottoms. Maybe not a wedding dress. They couldn't seem presumptuous and come like they wanted to get married. Oh, no. But there was very little doubt that she would be marrying Draco Malfoy today, in that very dress. Wedding dress or not, it was still unnaturally swishy-looking, definitely floor-length, ruche-bodice-ed, and cream colored. Even if they didn't outright _ask_ for a wedding, the dress would speak for them.

"That's not very subtle," she managed, her voice trembling.

Bellatrix's eyes bored holes in the offending garment."Yes, well. Apparently Lucius has always wanted to see you in cream and this is his last chance to do it." _._

Hermione's stomach turned again. "Did he really say that?"

"Yes. No. I don't know." Bellatrix stalked over to the windows and pulled the curtains open sharply. "Just get dressed, Granger. No one is in a good mood today and being late will just piss us all off more."

Hermione looked at the dress for a long moment, and then sagged in defeat, moving over to pick it up. "Malfoy here yet?" she asked dully.

"Don't call him Malfoy," Bella snapped reflexively. But her voice lagged. "He does have a first name."

"So do I," Hermione murmured, shooting the older woman a quick, frantic look before shimmying out of her top and trying futilely to cover herself with her arms.

"No, he's not here yet. Which is just as well because your hair is a bloody disaster today. You really would do better to cut it all off. But I wanted to talk to you a bit before you're all set to go. Don't give me that look, Granger, because I already had this talk with Draco. It's not just you who gets this treat, trust me." She rolled her eyes with a look of exaggerated torture. "You wouldn't normally hear me saying this, but I do think that Lucius has gone a bit bonkers."

Hermione stopped trying to wriggle modestly into the tight satin dress and stared at Bellatrix in unconcealed shock. Had she just accused Lucius of going a _bit bonkers_? Since when had the word 'bonkers' ever been heard coming out of Bellatrix Lestrange's mouth? And for the love of Merlin, why _now_? She already had to worry about an angry daddy-to-be Death Eater and his Hermione-hating son. She didn't need to deal with another Death Eater gone nutty…

"So, what's this talk?" she said uneasily, when it was clear that Bellatrix had gone off into her own little world, frowning and muttering things.

"What?" The woman's dark head snapped up and her eyes fell upon Hermione's half-clothed state. Her thin mouth curled in disgust and amusement, and she shook her head as if to clear it. "Oh. Right. Your Lord Malfoy says I'm to instruct you on what is expected of you today."

She'd been wondering –the full story – how they were supposed to convince Voldemort that she and Malfoy actually wanted to get married. She nodded faintly, resuming the struggle to fit her arms through the sleeves of her dress.

"The story" – and here Bellatrix's lip curled again in a clear indication of just how little she approved of the story – "is that you with all your 'charm and beauty' managed to seduce my nephew while he was over for tea. Lucius was out that day – Draco came to visit Aunty" – the face she made here was almost a leer – "and I was apparently _easily_ enough _distracted_ that the two of you ended up fumbling around in a bedroom together. Hence the baby."

"Hence the baby…" Hermione murmured, knowing full well that it would take a lot more than duty and honor to make a Malfoy marry the girl he'd knocked up.

"After that, the two of you somehow managed to sneak some time together behind all our backs, and for whatever reason actually fell in love."

She stopped fumbling with her zipper and stared at the woman again. In _love_? What, did they think that Voldemort was daft? Apart from the fact that she and Mal – Draco couldn't be together without getting testy, there was the sheer improbability of Draco Malfoy ever under any circumstances going for The Mudblood.

Bellatrix leered. "Yes, Granger. You heard me. In love. Now I've given this same talk to Draco so he knows what type of behavior to expect in you. He's all but given his word to do the same. You can't just go along with Lucius' story. You have to act your parts."

Hermione's jaw may have literally dropped. "You want me to act like I'm genuinely in love with Malfoy?" she gasped.

"Draco."

"Malfoy." She paused for an imperceptible moment, waiting for the inevitable slap. The slap never came and the moment passed more quickly than it had come. "Yes, you are to act as if you are genuinely in love. It's not just lust, Granger, but love. Although lust played a big role in getting you where you are today…"

The jab didn't even bother her. Her brain, usually so adept at calculating its way through sticky spots, was stuck on repeat, throwing the same phrases at her over and over. _Seduced Malfoy. Baby. In love. Voldemort. Seduced Malfoy. Had sex. Have feelings. Voldemort. Copped up Malfoy. Offspring. Romance!!! Voldemort. _

"So," Bellatrix was saying, "that's that. I'll leave you to your own devices then. I hear brides like to be alone before their weddings." And then she left Hermione to her broken-record thoughts.

***

The air at the Malfoy Manor was thick with tension come five-till-eleven. Hermione sat ramrod straight at the edge of an armchair in the drawing room, smoothing her skirt and her hair compulsively. She looked anywhere but someplace in particular, her face ashen, and her lips moving in what may or may not have been mouthed words. Lucius paced the strip of stone in front of the hearth, his fingers trailing on the mantle. Every time he turned back to face her, he would stare at Hermione for a long moment, memorizing everything about her: her hair, her eyes, her cheekbones. Her neck, her shoulders, her breasts. A long time on her breasts, then down to the curves of her waist and her hips, the slim line of her legs, down to the high-heeled feet that poked out from the end of the sweeping skirt of the damn dress. Bellatrix fumed indiscreetly, shooting nasty looks intermittently at each of them, and peering out the curtains when she wasn't giving them death glares.

Draco himself felt a bit peaky as he climbed the steps up to the wide veranda, and his hand shook when he reached up to knock on the door. While he waited he straightened his tie self-consciously, the pounding of his heart in his throat making the collar of his shirt seem so tight that it might strangle him. When he heard the doorknob turn he smoothed his hair mechanically, then let his hands drop in horror when he realized that he was going to all this trouble for the mudblood.

"Draco," Lucius said silkily.

Hermione's heart did a silly little flippy thing before picking up in double time. Not really aware of her actions, she stood on shaky legs and grabbed onto Bellatrix's arm so that she wouldn't fall over. Bella shook her off irritably, and the two of them made their way out into the foyer. But Hermione was trembling like a leaf, and each step took an eternity. She knew that just around the corner stood Draco… She couldn't breathe. Oh, Merlin. Oh sweet Jesus she was _fucked_. She was not just about to go meet Draco Malfoy, her about-to-be husband.

Oh! No. This was wrong! All wrong! It was supposed to be Ron!

The miniscule part of her that was still Hermione Granger, locked up somewhere in the dark recesses of her brain, rattled the bars to her cage and tried more desperately than ever to get out. She screamed obscenities. She ripped out her hair. She, in a very un-Hermione-ish move, broke down and started sobbing. But the new, docile Hermione 2.0 fixed a shaky smile on her face and let her feet carry her out into the hall on autopilot. The clacking of her heels was uneven with the uncertainty of her step._._

Draco's breathing hitched when he saw Granger totter out of the drawing room. She looked lovely, really, with that satiny cream draped across her slender frame, setting off the high color in her cheeks and contrasting with her hair, which had been tamed into smooth, dark curls. He almost smiled with endearment when she bit her lip uncertainly and looked first toward his father. Well. She was a right sight more attractive than his father, that was for sure.

Hermione, for her part, felt all the oxygen leave her lungs with a painful _whoosh_ when she saw Malfoy's dark suit and tie. His pale face shone with nervous energy, and his eyes seemed to flash a brighter silver than normal. Her _fiancé_? Her knees decided then to give out, and she found herself caught in a sudden tangle of Malfoy Arms as both Lucius and Draco reacted instinctively to scoop her back to her feet. She ended up holding tightly onto Draco, relieved when Lucius let go. And then when she realized that her hands were on Draco's chest, his on her waist, and she was looking up to meet his eyes, she flushed and reclaimed her body quickly.

"Well." Bellatrix tapped her toe irritatingly. "Are we all ready to go, then?"

Lucius clapped his hands together, then brushed his fingers lightly across the small of Hermione's back. "The car is waiting," he said. He nodded to Bellatrix and Draco. "After you two, then." And when they were through the door he nudged Hermione not-so-subtly toward his son. She stumbled into him, and he caught her, again automatically. This time she held onto his hand, after Bellatrix glared at her murderously.

The four of them clambered awkwardly into the usual long black car, although Hermione wondered if the inside had been magically expanded to fit them all. She found herself squished between the two Malfoy men, which was awkward. Awkward because Draco held onto her hand woodenly and stared straight ahead, and awkward because Lucius was playing distractingly with her hair and his hand kept drifting too low over her collarbone. She wanted to ball her hands into fists but Draco's hand was right there, and he winced twice when she squeezed it too hard.

"You're together," Bellatrix hissed, when they clambered out of the car. Hermione looked over at Draco, who looked like he was trying not to roll his eyes. He smoothed his thumb over the back of her hand brusquely, and she grimaced lightly before stepping closer to him so that she was almost tucked into his body. They shuffled awkwardly, unused to each other's body in such close proximity, up the steps and into Voldemort's little palace.

It was different last time. Last time, there had been a whole crowd waiting for her, ready to humiliate her. But this time, it would almost seem that their arrival had been unexpected. There wasn't a swarm of angry men in black capes ready to watch her suffer, and she was glad for it. As they dragged themselves into Voldemort's – oh gods, what to call it but a _throne room_? – their awkwardness took a new meaning. She almost felt like she was playing the part. Shy. Cringing into Draco. Bellatrix snorted.

"Miss Granger!" That high, icy voice again. She had to bite her lips to keep from whimpering. "I didn't expect to see you so soon."

Her knees were trembling. "My Lord," she said quietly, looking down, at her feet, and her hand wrapped around Draco's. Draco's thumb smoothed over her hand again, more gently this time.

"And Draco, too! What a lovely surprise. What could have brought you all here? Lucius?"

Hermione felt Draco stiffen beside her, and felt something oddly akin to pity. Imagine having to call that _thing_ your master.

Lucius was his usual smooth self. He clapped a hand on Hermione's shoulder affectionately and smiled fondly at Draco. "My Lord, who can explain what sort of behaviors two teenagers can get themselves into? Perhaps it would be better for them to explain themselves."

Lord Voldemort inclined his head ever so slightly toward Draco, who licked his lips nervously. He always had a problem with those unnatural eyes. He knew he wasn't supposed to look at them anyway, but he knew they were there, glinting at him, watching him through oddly catlike slits. He tried not to shiver.

"My Lord, I…" He looked over at Hermione, trying to smile fondly but probably ending up grimacing. The look of encouragement that she shot him was not so much a friendly push, but a frantic "Please go on before he hexes us to pieces" sort of encouragement. "My Lord, I'm afraid that I haven't…" What the fuck was he supposed to do, say that he'd "lost his virginity?"

"I blame it on Granger," he said pathetically.

"Me?" Hermione cocked one eyebrow coolly and Draco wondered if maybe he'd underestimated her levelheadedness and her superior acting abilities. She just had spent five weeks with his father. "Oh, you can't deny that you were a willing participant, darling."

Voldemort's lipless mouth twisted into a sort of grin. "Go on, Draco. Explain yourself."

_Granger and my dad have been shagging like bunnies and now she's pregnant and he's too bloody stupid to take things into his own hands._ "Gr – Hermione and I had the fortune of ending up in a room alone together a few weeks ago," he said, missing calmness and managing more of a pathetic squeak.

Hermione smiled dazzlingly. "Draco can be quite alluring when he's left to his own devices."

He jerked his head down and stared at her in surprise. She smiled up at him coyly, and something twisted in his gut. Ugh. Granger was… flirting with him? And rather well, too. If she weren't herself…

Her eyes flashed a warning at him and she elbowed him sharply. "My – my own devices?" he spluttered. "It's barely my fault that you're so charming."

She laughed, and it had an edge of hysteria_. _"Oh, would you listen to him…"

Voldemort cleared his throat softly. "Draco," he sighed. "After all the work your father did to raise you well, is this really how you've turned out?"

Lucius sniffed derisively. "My Lord, speaking from personal experience, I know how much of a seductress Miss Granger can be. I'm sure that, like most seventeen-year-old boys, he had that rush of hormones. We're not proud of him, but…"

Bellatrix pinched Draco hard in the ribs. _You have to mean it._ "That's not true!" he said hotly. "That's not true, Father, and you know it. What Hermione and I have is more than lust and a quick grope in the dark."

She squeezed his hand warmly.

Voldemort merely laughed. "I suppose you mean to tell me, Draco, that you've fallen in love with Miss Granger? Forgive me if this seems far-fetched."

His cheeks burned but he lifted his chin high and set his face determinedly. "In love? Yes, My Lord. I would say that I'm in love." He heard Granger's quick, frantic breaths beside him, and felt the way she gripped his fingers so tightly. He untangled his fingers from hers lightly and wrapped his arm around her waist, drawing her closer. "I'm in love, but I also need to take responsibility for my actions."

Bellatrix sighed loudly. "Responsibility? Is that what you call this? You were barely responsible then, and this is just your cover-up."

Voldemort was grinning widely. All four of them were almost positive that he wasn't buying a word of what they were saying – world's most accomplished Legilimens, and all that… but to their surprise, all he said was, "Why don't you explain, then, Bella, if you have so much of an opinion."

"My… nephew got Miss Granger pregnant," she said evenly. "We're asking that he take responsibility for his actions and not leave a Malfoy half-breed out on the streets."

"So it's a matter of honor?"

"Except we're lucky that he actually fell for Hermione." Lucius clapped his hand on Hermione's shoulder again, brushed the side of her face, and stepped back. "I know, My Lord, that it's not our place to ask you, but considering the circumstances…"

"You want Miss Granger and Draco to get married." If it weren't for – ugh. Merlin – his _voice_, he might have actually sounded considerate. He looked down from his throne to where Hermione cringed into Draco, and smiled lazily. "Ah, Lucius. You disappoint me, my old friend. And you, Draco. You really need to work more on your Occlumency."

Hermione almost smirked when Draco looked abashed. "Yes, My Lord."

They all waited for a horrible moment as Voldemort smiled down at them, and then he clapped his hands. "Just for you, Lucius. It's what friends do for each other, isn't it?" The Dark Lord He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Fucking-Named grinned jollily. "Of course, you'll let me keep an eye on the happy couple for my own personal reasons."

Lucius bowed deeply, and Hermione thought for a moment that she might have seen his face relax with relief. "Of course, My Lord. You are most kind."

"I suppose you're both ready now?" Voldemort asked Hermione and Draco. They both blinked up at him in shock.

"Now?" Draco managed.

"One would think that people as hopelessly in love as the two of you wouldn't have issues with that, don't you think?" Voldemort snapped. "Both of you. Kneel. I'll do it myself."

Draco knelt ungracefully and Hermione sort of tumbled over into him. He caught and steadied her, and then took her hands. His own were cold and dry, but she was sure that hers were hot and sweaty. Great. She felt the very _epitome_ of the beautiful, blushing bride right now. Her heel caught in her skirt and she almost pitched forward again. Voldemort stood above them, his moment of frustration gone as quickly as it had come, looking amused again.

"All situated?" He twirled his wand in his long, white fingers. Harry had talked about Voldemort's hands once – she'd thought he was just chattering, after a dream he'd had. He always woke up terrified. But there was something about them, so long and spindly… like the hands of a pianist. A killer pianist.

Draco squeezed her hands to get her attention, and she looked at him distractedly. She caught his eyes burning into her face, piercing and silver. There was color in his high cheekbones, and his jaw was tight and square. She supposed that brides were supposed to appreciate how handsome their husbands were, right before they said I do. Calling Malfoy handsome might have been a bit of a stretch, but… she supposed she could have done worse, considering.

She squeezed back and smiled nervously, her stomach flipping over again. Her heart was pounding so fast that her chest was moving up and down.

Voldemort set the tip of his wand over the place where their hands joined, and he cleared his throat dryly before he started to recite.

"Do you, Draco Malfoy, take Hermione – is it Jean? – Granger to be your wife – to live together in the magical bond of matrimony?"

"I do," Draco said, through gritted teeth.

Hermione felt herself growing hot. Voldemort babbled on contentedly, spewing a twisted version of the traditional Muggle vows. From the look of surprise on Lucius' face, and from what little she remembered of her reading, wizards didn't normally bind with Muggle words.

"I will," Draco mumbled.

Something hot coiled around her hands and she looked down, surprised to see a thin band of golden light twisting around their interwoven fingers. Her brain made the connection very quickly. An Unbreakable Vow. Well, fuck.

Voldemort inclined his head toward her slightly. "Do you Hermione Jean Granger take Draco Malfoy to be your husband – to live together in the magical bond of matrimony?"

"I do?"

She couldn't look at him, or at Draco, or at anyone. She just looked at the band of light that wove around their hands over and over, pulsing lightly. She knew what would come next, knew how the words would tie her down…

"Will you love him, comfort him, honor and keep him, in sickness and in health, for richer, for poorer, for better, for worse, in sadness and in joy, to cherish and continually bestow upon him your heart's deepest devotion, forsaking all others, keep yourself only unto him as long as you both shall live?"

_For as long as you both shall live_. No divorce, then, if it was Unbreakable. No Ron. She'd never be a Weasley.

_Love him_. Will you love him, Hermione? Will you have a choice? Magic couldn't actually _force_ her to love her husband, could it? And plenty of other people in arranged marriages took mistresses or lovers, so it wouldn't be that bad, would it? _They weren't bound by an Unbreakable Muggle Vow._

She felt all eyes on her, and took a deep breath.

"I will."

Another cordon of light wove to join its mate, and they formed a seamless chain, winding over and over around their hands, through their fingers, up and down their wrists. Hermione gasped when she felt something scalding on the ring finger of her left hand, burning hot against her skin, squeezing until…

All the light was gone. She and Draco reclaimed her hands, and she wasn't really surprised to see that she now sported a plain gold band, that still glimmered gently from the magic.

"I now pronounce you man and wife," Voldemort said wryly. "Draco, you may now kiss the bride."

Draco grimaced and kissed Hermione lightly on the cheek.

"Good, well, that's done." Voldemort inspected his long fingers boredly. "I'll expect the two of you to check in from time to time. I'd love to hear how the newlyweds are doing, and of course we'll have to present you to the rest sometime soon, won't we?"

Hermione felt numb as Lucius helped her to her feet and draped her over Draco's proffered arm.

"I'll send you two on your merry way, then," the Dark Lord continued, still studying his hands. "I hope that you do enjoy your wedding night, for it only happens once. It wouldn't be very traditional of you to ignore that, would you?"

Hermione had never wanted more to crawl up into a hole and die. Here she was, married to Draco Malfoy, pregnant with Lucius' baby, and listening to Tom Riddle talk to her about sex.

It wasn't exactly how she'd planned her life out.

* * *

**Ron: Oy, Harry. What say you to going back to Hogwarts for a bit?**

**Harry: Why would that do us any good? We're looking for *message reducted***

**Ron: But aren't there supposed to be *message reducted* at Hogwarts?**

**Harry: No. Too cliché. You know if we went back there, Hermione would show up hitched to Malfoy or something ridiculous like that. It happens in every bad plot. So not in ours.**

**Ron: Hermione and… Malfoy? But she was with Malfoy Sr., Harry…**

**Harry: Oh, sod off, Ron. I'm trying to translate this document from Parselmouth into something you'll be able to read. Why don't you ask the reviewers what they think? Honestly, I think there are far better ways of finding *message reducted* and what Hermione's up to, but if you want to be lame like that…**

**Ron: Well? *glares* What say you, hey? I want to save Hermione's ass.**

**Ginny: *under her breath* Ron, I think that's already done. She's not stuck with you, you miserable freckled oaf. She got herself a nice slice of Drake-Cake. And I think Lily made her decision concerning this plot. *brightens* But you can always review! I'd love to show up…**

**Lily: *loudly* THANKS ALL FOR GIVING OUT SPOILERS! While we're at Review Whoring, though, I have a question for you all. The next chapter calls for a lemon. Now, I could write my first lemon ever JUST FOR YOU and be explicit to show the emotion that needs to be conveyed in it, but I won't enjoy it. Hymnophile's not big on beta-ing lemons, and I'm not huge on writing them. But if you **_**really**_**, really want one, I'll be giving the least graphic lemon I can. Otherwise, it's charmingly clumsy evasion for you. Knowing how awkward I feel about this, please answer carefully. You don't want to make me regret what I do… Oh. And I have a fairly comprehensive plot outline that I'm QUITE proud of. You guys have treats ahead if you click the magic button. LOVE!!!**


	9. Fragile

**A/N: I apologize for the abnormally long wait. I had a stack of super stressful homework, and this chapter was generally just a BITCH. I want to thank you all for reviewing (101 reviews. I'm smiling over here) and being patient and fabulous people.**

**It is with great pride that I introduce bex231, my gorgeous Aussie soul mate, who graciously volunteered to guest-write the end of this chapter. Bec, I cut a bit (okay, a lot), because, as mindboggling as it was, it just didn't fit my style. But I think when you read you'll find a lot of things that you recognize.**

**That said, I hope you enjoy. 'Nother A/N at the end, because I don't know when to shut up. **

**Chapter Eight**

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**Fragile**

She hung tightly onto his arm the whole way home. He would have been annoyed if he hadn't seen the way his father was _looking_ at her. He really didn't know how to describe it other than creepy. He wouldn't call it a smoldering glare (because there was just no way that his fifty-seven-year-old father was looking at _his_ seventeen-year-old Muggleborn wife with a smoldering glare), but it was freakishly close.

So he pulled her closer to him and glared at Lucius, who smiled back complacently. Bella had chosen to Apparate home, rather than suffocate in the tense atmosphere of the car. Draco wished he'd opted out of the car ride too, but he had to stay with Granger and apparently, Apparition was bad for pregnant women – splinching could be disastrous.

No. Not Granger now. Malfoy. Bloody hell, was he supposed to call her Malfoy? But that was _him_! Hermione? Um. They weren't friends. They were just husband and wife.

The car stopped smoothly in front of Draco's house and _Hermione_ looked at it with quiet curiosity. He frowned a little. He'd never really looked at it through anyone else's eyes. It was a nice enough house. Big, too. Probably bigger than what she was used to seeing with the Weasels. But it was nothing compared to his father's house.

Erm. He wasn't sure where the jealousy came from. Since when did Granger's opinion matter? She was his… wife. She would deal with it.

They climbed out of the car and Draco turned to his father. "I would invite you in," he said coldly, "but I only asked Becky to make dinner for two."

Lucius kept smiling creepily from the car. "Oh, it's not a problem. I understand that you two want your alone time…"

He might throw up. He was definitely suppressing his gag reflex.

"I'll stop in later this week, though," Lucius added pleasantly. "Just to make sure everything is going okay for you and… my grandson."

Hermione's grip on his arm became painfully tight.

"Good evening, Father." He tugged at her gently and started guiding her up to his front door. He heard the car door slap and the engine start, and felt oddly relieved when the car drove away.

He opened the door and inclined his head slightly. "After you, Mrs. Malfoy."

Hermione stared at him for a long, breathless moment. He recognized the anger in her eyes quite clearly, having been the brunt of it many a time in their Hogwarts days. He waited impatiently for her to get on with it and snap at him. Maybe smack him for his impudence. Something.

He didn't expect her to stand there, gnawing her lip with indecision, before flushing and lowering her head. She stepped inside, and he followed her, frowning.

And then they were standing in the cool air of the front hall, and the tension between them was tangible. They looked anywhere but at each other. Words rose and died on their lips. Utter silence. Utter awkwardness.

_This is ridiculous_. "Can I take your coat?" he said, too loudly, blatantly ignoring that Hermione was wearing a light sweater, not a jacket.

She flushed again and slipped out of the fluid material, handing it to him. "Thank you."

He fingered the light cotton material and wondered when and why he'd started acting like a house elf in his own home. "If you want to sit down in the parlor," he said, pointing, "I'll be back in just a minute. It's too early for dinner, but I can get aperitifs."

Hermione nodded mutely. Her heart thudded uncertainly as her knees trembled with nerves. She would have been fine if Draco had given her some indication of what to expect. She at least knew what Lucius wanted from her. But this unknown, this volatile… he could blow up at any minute. She didn't know his rules.

She fingered the neckline of her dress while he looked at her for a long moment, then turned abruptly and walked away with her sweater.

Sighing, she looked more closely at the hallway. If she was being brutally honest, Malfoy's taste in décor wasn't bad. It was more a pleasant arrangement of neutral tones than it was the blatantly Slytherin green, silver, black color scheme of the Malfoy Manor. It was actually kind of refreshing.

She rubbed a hand down her arm. She gave Draco her sweater out of politeness, but she was a bit chilly.

For lack of anything better to do, Hermione went through the door into the sitting room, which was surprisingly open and modern. He _had_ to have someone else decorating for him. There was no way that a straight man was so good at interior design. Her proof? Ron and Harry.

She sat carefully on the edge of the long, U-shaped white sofa and looked at her hands, folded in her lap. At the ring, on the third finger of her left hand.

Wearing Draco's ring felt different from Narcissa's. Where the latter was heavy and ornate, and seemed to weigh down her hand, this one was plain and light. It felt _right_, like it was a part of her. Panic jumped in her gut and she tried to pull the ring off; it twisted, but was stuck magically. She couldn't pull it any higher than her knuckle.

"Thinking about a divorce already, Granger?" said a cold, familiar voice. She jumped, flushed, and hid her hands in her lap as Malfoy slouched back into the room. Behind him tottered a tiny house elf, who staggered under the weight of an enormous silver platter. "Me too, but I don't think Father would like that much."

Hermione watched the elf silently as she struggled to keep the tray flat and slide it onto the coffee table. The girl's lips were taught with disapproval when she saw that Draco made no effort to help.

"Firewhisky?" he said pleasantly, pouring himself a generous drink from a familiar blue bottle.

She grimaced. "No thank you."

He frowned. "Are you sure? I don't know about you, but I could use a stiff drink…"

Instinctively, her hands went to her belly, but she dropped them again, as if feeling the flatness of her stomach was both reassuring and disappointing. "It's not good for the baby."

"Oh." To hide his flaming cheeks, Draco took an overlarge gulp of Firewhisky, and almost spit it out. His eyes were streaming, and his sinuses burned. He had the distinct impression that Grang – Hermione was trying not to laugh at him. "I forgot about the baby."

She made a little face of distaste, and silence swelled between them again.

"This is ridiculous." He pushed a bowl of nuts over to her. "Please eat something. Father will kill both of us if you're not in good health."

She took a walnut. "He'll kill you first," she corrected gently.

"Me first." Draco stared into the electric blue liquid at the bottom of his glass. "Um. Do you want to talk about it?" _Do you want to talk about it?_ What was he, some fucking girl? He did not _talk about it_ with anyone. Least of all with Hermione Gra – Malfoy.

Hermione seemed to be thinking along the same lines. "Talk about it?" she repeated dubiously. "I wasn't aware this was the girls' dormitory."

He cleared his throat, the vapors from his drink shooting up his sinuses again and making him cough. "We don't have to talk about the… baby. I just thought it might be nice, you know, if there's anything particular I should know. Weird health things. Due dates. Medical quirks. God forbid my father should kill me."

Her face went oddly blank. "I'm due February 1. There's a follow up appointment at St. Mungo's in a month's time. You might want to watch out when I'm eating because I haven't gotten over the nausea yet," she said dully.

He frowned. "I thought girls were supposed to be excited about being pregnant."

She scowled at him. "Would _you_ be excited to be having _your _father's baby?"

"Touché." He ran his thumb lightly around the rim of his glass. "Do you want something else? Tea, or water, or…?"

She smiled tightly. "Never thought the Ferret would have manners."

"Never thought the Mudblood would be under my roof."

"Touché."

Another long silence.

Hermione reached out and took a handful of nuts. "Look, Malfoy…"

Draco rubbed his face wearily. "It's Draco, please."

Her mouth twisted into a half-smile, half-grimace. "Draco… This is absurd. We're stuck together for the next… Merlin knows how long. We're going to have to get over the awkwardness at some point."

His fingers tightened imperceptibly around his glass, and his jaw set slightly. "Hermione," he said levelly. "Just because you're my wife doesn't mean we have to be friends. I don't know what my father let you get away with when you were in his house but I'm going to make it very clear that you're living with _me_ now. It doesn't matter if I'm disgusted with my father or if you're a damsel in distress. The fact of the matter is that I don't like you."

"Does that mean that neither of us is allowed to be civil? Draco, this isn't all about me. This is for your sanity, too. Too much silence… can do terrible things to a person." Aha. There was a bit of the anger he'd seen at his father's house. He smiled. Just a bit.

"Granger…"

"It's Malfoy," she frowned.

"Malfoy?"

"Hermione. Malfoy. Your father made sure of that. If you can't start calling me Hermione, then at least –"

"_Hermione_!" He didn't even raise his voice that much. Just a tiny wee bit. But she reacted like he'd slapped her. She folded her hands back in her lap and looked down, biting her lip hard against what he was sure was another volley of insults. "It's only your first night here. Please. I don't want to have to punish you."

His father's words. He barely even knew what they meant, but he'd learned long ago that repeating his father usually got him good results. Scare tactics, see. He wasn't expecting Gra – Malf – Hermione to pale and wind her fingers tighter in her lap, pressing her lips together and suddenly becoming very small.

"No My Lord," she murmured, so quietly he almost didn't catch it.

_My Lord?_

The shot glass shattered in his hand. "I want to make one thing very clear right now, _Hermione_. I am not my father. I said earlier, Draco will more than suffice."

"Yes, M – Draco." She twisted the ring anxiously on her finger. "I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize." It sort of hit him then: the enormity of what he had gotten himself into by taking on Hermione. He knew it wasn't a choice, but it still felt like it was his duty. And he'd wound himself up with an awfully big duty. Thanks to dear Lucius.

Somewhere deeper in the house, a grandfather clock chimed six. Draco hadn't been aware that time was passing so quickly. Or so slowly. They'd probably gotten married around noon. A quick lunch with Lucius. And so, here they were.

He let himself look at Hermione again. She was very pale, twisting the ring around her finger so fast that he was sure it chafed. Like Granger or not, he couldn't honestly say that he got pleasure out of terrifying people the way some of his… relatives did. It was almost painful to watch, especially in someone who had been so strong. He couldn't help but to wonder what his father had done to break her.

Hermione was breathless. The further the sun set in the sky outside the window she faced, the closer they were to dark, to that awkward after-dinner time. She'd never been one for darkness, but when she'd moved in with Lucius, nighttime activities had taken on a whole new meaning. _Draco wasn't Lucius_. No.

But she didn't know what Draco would do behind closed doors. She couldn't force another one of those damn nuts down her throat. She'd taken all her nausea medicine that day, but she was sick with fear.

The silence grew until they each would go mad. The tiny house elf came in again with a rag to clean up the mess of shattered glass and firewhisky, and each of the teenagers seemed to snap out of a personal reverie.

"Master Draco, Mistress Granger," Becky croaked, bending down on her hands and knees. "Blinkers is sending Becky to tell you that dinner is served. Master and Mistress would not like their good dinners to get cold. No. Not after Becky is working hard to make dinner the way Master Draco is asking for it…"

Draco stood. "Thank you, Becky. Hermione? Will you do me the honor of accompanying me to the dinner table?"

Hermione stood on shaky knees. She shot one last glance at the stooped elf before she followed Draco out of the room. He wasn't oblivious to her gesture.

They ate in the dining room, which was weird for Draco. He supposed it was a good thing to make the right first impression and all that, and he had told Becky that Miss Granger was going to be a guest… of sorts. But he'd have to clarify very quickly that he didn't live to the rigid societal rules that his father did. Gra – oh, fuck it. Hermione Malfoy wasn't so good that she could go and eat off Draco's dinner table whenever it suited her fancy. She could eat in the kitchen, just like him.

When they had started into the first course, Draco looked at Hermione pleasantly over his wine goblet. "So," he said, trying hard to keep a friendly, even tone. Trying to keep interest in his eyes. "I noticed that you didn't seem too… thrilled to see a house elf."

Hermione's knuckles went slightly whiter as she tightened her fingers around her cutlery. "How many elves do you have?" she said tonelessly.

"Three." He stirred his soup thoughtfully. "Are you opposed to house elves?"

She ignored the question. "Are your three house elves paid?"

A tiny wrinkle of confusion appeared in his smooth forehead, but he laughed. "What kind of question is that? Hermione, no one pays house elves. They don't now, and they didn't ever. Is that some sort of Muggle custom?"

Her eyes narrowed a fraction. "Draco, you're a reasonable person. You took Muggle Studies. Muggles don't have house elves."

"Silly me." He waved at her to go on. "Explain to me where that idea came from, then."

He was a bit surprised when she put down her spoon primly and straightened in her chair. "I've known a fair few house elves in my day. Just because I'm Muggleborn doesn't mean I'm completely ignorant. I do have eyes, and it's quite clear that the Wizarding community uses house elves to take advantage of free labor. It's not a balanced contract."

He had to try hard not to roll his eyes. "Hermione, that's the point. It's a house elf's nature to serve humans."

"No, it's not." She tossed her hair a bit, and for the first time all night, he thought that he saw a bit of light in her eyes. "It's not normal. No species is ever made to be completely submissive. And even if they do enjoy service, they should get benefits out of it – pay, sick days, vacations. They're intelligent beings, and they have every right that we do to fair treatment."

"You sound like you're reading off a script here." He was amused now at her naivety. "Explain it all to me then, oh wise one."

She didn't hide the eye rolling. "You're just as bad as Ron," she huffed. She adopted a tone that was frighteningly similar to the Weasel's. "Hermione, they _like_ slaving away. It makes them _happy_. Offering them freedom will just make them think you're not grateful for everything they do."

He choked. "Offering house elves _freedom_?"

"It's what Harry did to Dobby," she sniffed self-righteously. "And look how he turned out."

The amusement was turning slowly into confusion, and the annoyance than invariably follows. "_Dobby_?" he repeated incredulously. "Dobby the house elf? Surely you can't mean…"

Hermione had turned pale again. "I thought you knew about Dobby."

"Dobby…" He was still playing the name over in his head, unable to believe that that nutter of a house elf might have had anything to do with Hermione. "Dobby the house elf?"

She nodded.

"Potter set him free?"

"What did you think happened?"

He let out a short, hard laugh. "Hermione, coming from my family, what would I automatically conclude in a situation like that? Think for a minute."

A gasp of horror. "You thought your father _killed_ Dobby?"

He shrugged, a bit uncomfortable by the wide-eyed stare she fixed on him. "It wouldn't have been the first time."

She drew herself up proudly, still looking horrified. "I always knew that wizards were corrupt. It's no wonder Dobby was unhappy. That's why I created S.P.E.W., of course."

"_Spew_?" What the hell was she going on about?

She frowned. "Not _spew_. S.P.E.W."

He looked at her blankly. Was there a difference?

"Honestly." She had slipped unconsciously back into her normal bossy tone. The familiarity of it was comforting. It made her feel like less of a stranger. "I swear you boys are all the same. It's not _spew_. S.P.E.W. stands for Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare."

This time he managed not to choke, but he spluttered into his goblet all the same. "Society for the Promotion of –"

"Of Elfish Welfare," she confirmed. "I founded it in fourth year. Don't look like that, Draco. It's a pressing issue."

"I see."

"No, really. Just look at Dobby. He wanted nothing more than to earn a decent wage for his work, and to be free to choose his own employers. But he couldn't, because your" – here, her voice shook with rage – "abusive father refused to let him go. Once Dobby became a Free Elf, he was able to choose his own way and find a much more stable position at Hogwarts. Professor Dumbledore treats him humanely, offers him a Galleon a week, and gives him days off. If S.P.E.W. could just raise more awareness about the mistreatment of house elves, then maybe we could…"

Draco didn't want to laugh. Really, he didn't. It was horribly disrespectful of him, and it wasn't even _that funny_, but it was just that she was so serious about it, so impassioned by something that they both knew would never take hold… And for Merlin's sake, she was campaigning for _house elves_. Not even the house elves cared.

He realized quickly that she wasn't laughing with him. Instead, her mouth was closed, her hand over her lips like she could force the words back in. Her eyes were huge again, trained to his face. There was something in them. An emotion that he'd seen when he'd gone with Aunt Bella down to Diagon Alley and the pedestrians had all turned to look at her. It was like the way that people at the Ministry looked at his father, when he swept by with his billowing black robes and swirling hair, his eyes flashing.

It was an emotion that he knew very well. It came with its own unique smell and tension. It sent his heart thrumming and twisted anticipation in his stomach.

It was fear. People had looked at him with serious dislike before. Or contempt. Or nervous reactions. But never downright fear.

He didn't know what his father, what Bellatrix, what _the Dark Lord_ saw in making people afraid. It just made him feel uncomfortable.

"What's wrong?" he said, as gently as he could.

"I'm babbling," she said quickly. "I'm sorry. It wasn't my place to critique your household ideas. If you want house elves, the more the merrier. Who am I to tell you that you can't keep them?"

She couldn't even meet his eyes.

Before he really thought about it, his fist made contact with the smooth mahogany of the table, and their plates jumped a few centimeters off the table. "Damn it, Granger, get over yourself."

She shrank further into her chair.

"Stop looking at me like I'm a monster. I'm not the nicest person, I'll admit it, but I'm not my father. I'm not going to… God, I don't even want to _know_ what he did. I'm not like that. No chains, no whips, no torture. I'm not going to hurt you, okay?" He tried to soften his voice. "I'm not here to hurt you. I don't see eye-to-eye with my father on a lot of topics, and his methods of punishment are one of them. You're allowed to have and express an opinion here, so long as you're respectful about it."

"I'm sorry," she squeaked.

"Stop apologizing." A headache was building between his eyes. He sighed heavily and stabbed his fork at an errant leaf of arugula. "You didn't do anything wrong."

She lowered her head; her smooth brown curls gleamed in the candlelight. "I know this is weird for you," she said to her plate. "It must be totally bizarre, to have your father's…"

"Slut," he provided helpfully.

"Slut." She winced slightly. "To have your father's slut in your home. But it's weird for me, too. Lucius has his… rules. It's hard, sometimes, to tell what he expects, and I'd just started getting him figured out when this whole… mess started. Now I'm with you and I don't know what you want from me. I don't know how you'll react. If you'll be like him, or…"

"I'm only going to say this once," he said, the words sounding stiff as he almost quite literally forced them out of his mouth. He was loath to make her this promise, but it had to be done. "I'm not going to hurt you. I'm not my father. I'm not a barbaric pedophile. While you're in my – _our_ – house, you don't have to worry about things like that."

She took a listless bite off her plate. He could tell she didn't believe him. He wasn't totally sure that he believed himself.

***

Their dessert bowls had been cleared twenty some minutes ago. Their cups of tea were empty. The candles had been burned down to nubs that flickered spastically and dripped copious amounts of wax onto the table runner. Draco's watch read ten o'clock. Though there were no windows in the dining room, they both knew that the skies were dark, the sun long set.

They'd dragged out dinner as long as they possibly could. Through either a stroke of sheer luck or an incredible subconscious foresight, Draco had requested a full four courses of dinner, plus tea. They'd had a sort of unspoken agreement to eat slowly, and the lack of conversation made time drag by even more painfully.

But there was no ignoring it now, when the house elves were darting around the room as discreetly as possible, moving around them to take down the candles and to pull off the tablecloth. Taking their napkins off their laps and sweeping around their feet on the floor.

It wasn't until Blinkers snapped his fingers to put out the last of the candles, then left the room and left the two of them in near-total darkness that Draco realized he could only prolong the inevitable for so long. He pushed his chair back, and the scraping of the legs against the floor was so loud in their thick silence that they both jumped.

"Do you want to have a bit of a fire?" he heard himself asking.

"A fire?" her voice was breathy.

A fire? "Erm, yeah. There's a fireplace in the sitting room, if you wanted to –"

"Yes!" She jumped out of her chair, and it fell to the floor behind her. Dear god, anything to keep them out of the bedroom.

He took her to his – their – sitting room, and she perched on one end of the couch while he started a fire. He stepped back, and took his place on the other end of the couch, as far away from her as possible. They looked at the flickering fames that danced in front of them, silent.

Hermione looked at Draco fleetingly, smoothed that cream dress over her knees and then dropped her head into her hands, kneading at her temples like her head was about to explode. Draco knew the feeling.

How could she just sit there and say nothing? She was normally quite talkative, wasn't she? He tried to remember. He'd never really taken the time to examine Granger, but it had at least _seemed_ like she talked a lot. She had to. She was a woman.

She'd annoyed the hell out of him at school – nagging him about his work, defending Potter and the Weasel. She was the only Mud – Muggleborn who'd ever really stood up to him. Why couldn't she stand up for herself now? Or at least give him some sort of clue…?

The grandfather clock in the corner seemed to have slowed down as the minutes dragged on, full of the sound of the ticking of the clock and the crackling of the flames. He was hyperaware of her sitting six feet away from him, her face blank, her body still and tense.

He let out a strangled sigh that sounded too loud in their silence. "Okay, look…"

She turned her head slightly.

"You're…" he gritted his teeth. "You're right." Those words sounded so wrong on his tongue. "We're both in the same boat here. Neither of us _wants_ to do this, but both of us _have _to, and it's a miserable, creepy thing, and we're just sort of…"

"Draco, you're babbling."

He took a deep breath and balled his hands into fists. "Alright, let's just get this over with."

"Get it… over with?" she said faintly.

The flames in the grate had flickered down into glowing embers. They sat in semi-darkness. He swallowed around an awkward lump in his throat. "Erm. Yeah. I can take you on a bit of a house tour first, if you like. Show you where things are at."

She nodded. "I'd like that."

"So you know the sitting room, and the dining room, and the parlor. There's a guest room through those doors there, and my library is here…" Slowly, they started moving through the house together. "Here's the toilet… If you go through those doors you get to the kitchen, but the elves don't like it much when you go in there without their permission. So these stairs…." They climbed the stairs very slowly. Almost too slowly. He gave her time to admire the artwork on the walls, which was uninteresting. Just portraits. Family portraits.

"Through this first door here us my office. There's another toilet just down that hall. Across here is another guest room – it's probably just about the right size for a nursery, but we can talk about that later. This room really has no meaning. I'm sure we can find something for it. Right now, it's just storage, but I'm open to shifting things around. Through here are the showers…"

And they stayed for a long time, examining the showers. Hermione found her bag of toiletries on the counter, and worked to arrange them in a non-obtrusive space. Draco thought he might even count the floor tiles – or maybe the little flecks of gold that wound through the marble of the tub – that would take longer.

But when Hermione ran out of bottles and Draco's head was hurting, they both knew they couldn't keep it going on for much longer. Draco reached out his hand for the golden handle that linked the master bath with the master bedroom. He had to drag her inside.

"Hermione, I told you I won't hurt you." The gentleness of his voice surprised him. She was Hermione Granger. The Mudblood he'd hated for six years. And how here he was, about to fuck her on their goddamn wedding night. The Rational Draco in his mind sneered at him, but he brushed himself away.

Her face was blank, vulnerable. He took her hand. She let him.

They stood in his room, unsure of how to proceed with one another. Draco reached up, somewhat hesitantly, to brush her hair behind her left ear, then letting his fingers brush slowly down her cheek down to her chin, the tips grazing her lips. Her breathing hitched slightly.

The last time that Draco had had sex, it had been a quick grope with Parkinson in the fifth floor broom cupboard between the portrait of Emily the Earnest and Margaret the Misplaced. Parkinson, for all her lack of facial beauty, possessed a certain talent for defying orders and twisting her body into physically impossible pretzels to achieve the highest amount of personal pleasure. It had been clumsy, sticky, and satisfying. This… not so much.

He didn't even know how to start, and she sure as hell wasn't taking any initiatives.

"Remind me why we have to do this?" she said, shakily.

"Hermione, this is The Dark Lord we're talking about. He doesn't give a fuck, so long as the results entertain him."

Her hands had somehow wound their way around his neck, and her smooth fingers against his throat made him swallow hard, feeling the pressure of his Adams apple against her skin.

"Do you think it would be okay if… I kissed you?"

She didn't even sigh in resignation. She just lifted up her face. He flicked his wand and closed the drapes, lowering the light in the room to a sort of soft glow. She stood, waiting for him, her upturned face shown into sharp shadows in the lighting.

His heart hammering in his throat, he leaned in and pressed his lips softly against hers. She let him kiss her awkwardly for a few, painful moments before she tightened her arms and drew him closer to her, running her tongue over his lips until they parted.

_I think you'll find that I have extraordinary tastes, actually._ It was clear that Lucius had taught Hermione a thing of two. He hated to admit it, but she _did_ know what she was doing, and chances were that she didn't get any of that knowledge from Potter or the Weasel.

He could tell that she was bored with his pace, but she didn't dare push him. Her lips were insistent on his own, but she wasn't forceful. She just let him kiss her, and did some wicked things with her tongue and his that he didn't know were possible.

There was some tiny little part of him that was screaming at him to stop. This was wrong. Wrong. All wrong.

The hand he had in her hair slid down her neck, over her collarbone, resting for a moment at the top of her breast before moving on the strap of the cream satin dress and smoothly sliding it down her shoulder, his hand following her arm until it reach just above her hand, leaving goose bumps in its wake. He pushed the other strap down and slid the dress off smoothly.

She stood in front of him unflinchingly as his breath caught in his throat and the dim lighting played graceful shadows across her torso with the rise and fall of her quick breaths. His eyes were drawn to two spots: first, to the dark spot on her right hip. A birthmark. Just a small blotch of darkened skin. He'd found a birthmark on Pansy's back when they'd first begun to fool around and it had really turned him off. But this one… He swallowed hard and moved his eyes up her torso, where they landed on the Malfoy crest branded into her breast, just barely visible over the lace of her bra.

"You… have nice skin," he managed, disgusted by the way that his body reacted to the sight of her. He didn't know what made him say that.

A soft May breeze rustled the drapes and the candles flickered, throwing their bodies into dreamlike relief as they pressed against each other again. He moved her hands up to his collar, and she made her way through his buttons smoothly, running her hands complyingly over his chest.

He pulled her down onto the bed as she shrugged his shirt off. Like she could read his mind, she moved under his lightest touch, bending wordlessly when and where she wanted him. If she noticed his Mark when she pulled his shirtsleeves off, she made no comment.

They moved together almost gracefully. She was clearly used to this, and she fell into familiar patterns. He, on the other hand, was satisfied just to have some measure of control over someone, _something_ for once in his life. Her certainty soothed him.

And so, in the dimming light of their room, Hermione brought Draco to new heights that he'd never dreamed of when he was with Pansy, and never had reached when he was alone in the dark. When she rolled off him, they were both sweaty and sticky, and not a single word had passed between them.

His arms oddly empty, he reached out for her and pulled her into his chest. She let him hold her stiffly, still not saying anything. He could feel the reluctance in every line of her body.

They lay together, their breathing slowing and falling into a rhythm. His heart was still fluttering in his chest, trying to pull itself back together and stop feeling so guilty. It was suddenly and abundantly clear why his father liked her so much. He'd taken all her will away: not once had Hermione done anything that Draco had not indicated he wanted. Nor had she protested against anything he did to her.

Not that he'd ever fantasized about her or anything, but he didn't think that he would have imagined sex with Granger being like that at all. Surely, she had to have some sort of spark, some sort of will. Back at school, she'd gotten into many a fight with Weasel. She'd snapped on the teachers who deserved it. She _stood up for herself_. Something about her obedience was almost a turn off, in that it was so heartbreaking.

Warm darkness wrapped around them like a cocoon, making time still as they each hung, suspended, in their own thoughts. After what could either have been a few minutes or an eternity, Draco heard the soft sound of sniffling. He tightened his hold on her ever so slightly, and shifted as if in his sleep to press closer to her, but aside from that, he didn't react. Clearly, this wasn't something he was meant to see or hear. Her tears were hot on his bare chest.

And he wondered what had happened to Hermione Granger.

* * *

**Quelques petits mots à vous tous…** (Sorry. My brain is still in French mode. French school will do that to you. Translates roughly to "A/N goes right here.")

**Just a word of caution – I start real school next week, and it's going to be at least twice as hard as school normally is for me, because it's all in #$!ing French. And I'm really scared. And we all know a) what school does to an author; b)what stress does to an author; c) what writers block does to an author; and d)what personal crises do to an author. Therefore, I cannot **_**promise**_** a quick update. The best that I can guess is two weeks. Which, considering the update times on some fics, isn't that bad. I've been spoiling you. But I still feel bad. **

**Also… I know what the answer will be for a select handful of you, but if I told you that I have to pick between spending my time on fanfiction or spending my time on editing the novel I've had sitting, lonely, in the archives of my computer since December, how understanding might you be? There's a difference between being inspired by something, and working on something that's actually good for the soul. My inner Muse is slowly dying. **

**Love you all!!!!!**

**Lily**


	10. The Papers of Ginerva Potter

Setting: a huge, empty stage in a huge, mostly-empty theatre. Lily steps out between the drawn, fading red curtains nervously and clears her throat, tapping on the microphone. "Hello, I'm Lily," she says nervously.

There is a polite smattering of applause from the gathered 70 people who have alerted, 41 people who have favorited, and handful of people who have contributed to the 111 reviews. Lily flushes and raises her hand. The audience is quiet.

"Thank you all for being here tonight. I'd like to thank you all so much for your patience and continued support." More quiet applause. Lily waits while it echoes thinly in the huge room. "I have a few announcements I'd like to make." She pulls a note card out of her pocket. "First of all, mjmusiclover, I keep trying to reply to your amazing reviews but you have pms disabled. So thank you for everything. Second, to Melissa, my anonymous reviewer, you leave lovely commentary. Thank you. Third, to all of you, I start school on Wednesday. As I said in the last chapter, a new post might not come for two weeks. I ask that you continue to be beautiful, patient readers. I'm cautioning you right now that this story is going to be excessively long. I've barely started. I hope you're in for a good, long read. I should mention that this next chapter isn't really a chapter. It's just an extra feature I know you've all been waiting for. Finally…" She puts the paper away and beams widely. "Finally, I'd like to pull a J.K. Rowling and tell you all that I've written the very last chapter of _Fallen from Grace_, and that it is locked up in a secret place where none of you can reach it. I'm going to be a total bitch and tell you I've decided which characters make it, and how, and why. And that's all I'm letting you know."

Sniggering, Lily runs off, dodging the rotten tomatoes that the gathered crowd is now throwing at her.

* * *

**Chapter-That's-Not-Really-A-Chapter **

**Ginerva Potter's Papers**

_The following letters and diary entries have been found in the remains of the Potter Estate, fifty years after the death of Albus Severus Potter, the last resident of the Potter Manor. Mr. Potter's grandchildren have donated these papers to biographers as we do our best to document the lives of the legendary Boy-Who-Lived and those closest to him. Harry Potter's personal papers are currently under investigation. _

Friday, May 2, 1997

Ginny –

You haven't heard from Hermione, have you? Only, Harry and I went out on a jaunt to Surry a week ago, and she wasn't there when we came back. She hasn't come back to Headquarters ever since.

She's been in _The Prophet_, though. I hope you're still getting it. They're trying to say that she's Malfoy's new consort, or some bullshit like that. _The Prophet_'s a load of rubbish, Gin. Don't listen to it.

But if you've gotten any letters or anything, could you please let us know?

Hi to Neville and Luna.

Love,

Ron

* * *

Saturday, May 3, 1997

Dear Ginny,

I hope this letter finds you in good spirits. I haven't heard much from you since you first made contact with Alina Moen. Ron and I are sending good thoughts your way in hopes that Ms. Moen can help you reach out to other American witches and wizards.

Please also give my greetings to Neville and Luna. I'm sure that Luna has been hearing from her father, but _The Quibbler_ is growing stronger because of _The Prophet's _inconsistencies. Xenophilius is currently under Order surveillance - can't give the details, of course, in case this gets intercepted. He's in good hands, and the best protection that we can offer.

I don't know how much Ron told you in his last letter, but Hermione's still missing. She's still popping up on the front page of _The _Prophet now and again, but things aren't looking good, and we haven't been in contact with her much. You still haven't heard from her, have you?

We're doing the best we can over here, but there's not enough of us. I've written with Neville and he reckons he and Luna can do fine over there all by themselves. We want you to come home, Gin. We need you.

If you could owl back by tomorrow, we'll come pick you up at your earliest convenience. We're not sure how long we need you here, but I'm confident that Neville and Luna can do fine without you.

Ron sends his love, and I send even more.

I can't wait to see you again, hold you again, tell you I love you in person.

Yours,

Harry

* * *

_The undated note in Harry Potter's handwriting was attached to the article below_.

1:20 AM, Borgin almost caught Ron tripping over a Hand of Glory. Gin, look into Ministry's quick cover-up. What does Voldemort know??

**The Quibbler**

**May 15, 1997**

Strange news from Knockturn Alley last night, and even stranger is the way that it contradicts itself. At eight yesterday morning, Mr. Borgin, of Borgin and Burkes, reported having seen two unidentified figures in his store past closing – well past midnight. Mr. Borgin claimed that the two had stolen a locket, which is rumored to have belonged to Salazar Slytherin.

Later that afternoon, the Ministry of Magic issued a press release, announcing, among other things, that "Mr. Borgin has confirmed that in fact nothing was stolen during the break in to his shop yesterday," that " Salazar Slytherin's locket has not been seen for centuries," and that they are still looking for the perpetrators of the crime.

It is the opinion of this paper that the whole affair has been publicized to cover up the more pressing (and more confidential) issue of the Nargle swarm in Eastern Europe.

* * *

_An excerpt from Ginerva's personal diary._

May 20, 1997

Harry's mantra: snake, something of Hufflepuff's, something of Ravenclaw's. Crossed off the list: the diary, the ring, the locket. But that only adds up to six. After all the trouble Dumbledore went through to tell Harry about the importance of seven, I cannot in good conscience believe there is not one more. I'm afraid to know what it is.

Today, a box full of Polyjuice Potion appeared on the door of number 12. There was a note attached that read only, "Use it well." Harry says we should trust it – he's seen those words before. Ron says we should force-feed Kreacher some to be sure it's safe. I'll murder him if he does.

Still no word from Hermione. Waiting for a reply from Mr. Lovegood.

Ginny

* * *

_The next letter was found covered in peculiar doodles – a circle with a line through it in the middle of a triangle._

Dear Potter and Weasleys:

The symbol printed in last week's edition of _The Quibbler_ is a little-known ruin from one of wizardkind's most famous fables.

If you have any interest in the story of the Deathly Hallows, I suggest a rendezvous at my house at 10 next Saturday morning.

Yours,

X. Lovegood.

* * *

_Also found, ripped out around the time of the letter, are pages from Ms. Rita Skeeter's book, _The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore. _These pages include the same symbol and a hastily scrawled:_

"Wand, Cloak, stone…?"


	11. Suspended

**Chapter Nine**

**Suspended**

Hermione couldn't say what roused her that morning, but the shock of finding the bed empty was enough to jolt her all the way awake. She looked around, confused, trying to get her bearings. It wasn't the room she'd woken up in most days for the past month or so. No long bay windows stretching across the left wall. No four-poster bed. No tasteful cream walls. No. Fresh, white walls, and a normal-sized window, that spilled warm light onto the pale floorboards. A normal bed, with a white down comforter and almost cheekily green sheets.

And no Lucius sitting beside her, or Bellatrix sneering over her.

And Malfoy was nowhere to be seen.

She slid slowly out from between the cool sheets and her feet thudded dully on the bare floor beneath her. It was not entirely a surprise when she stretched up on the balls of her feet and looked down at her naked body. Well. She didn't expect he'd have magicked her into pajamas now, did she?

Some underclothes and a blue terrycloth dressing robe were laid out on the desk chair, and she slipped into them quickly, tying the robe as she padded downstairs to the kitchen. Draco had said he rarely took his meals in the dining room, which was nice. She could go for a meal that felt a little less like a banquet.

The ears of the little house elf waiting for her at the kitchen door were quivering and stiff. The elf's eyes were popping and indignant, and for the briefest of moments, Hermione thought he might be protesting her presence in the kitchen, or perhaps her half-dressed state.

Instead, he drew himself up to his full height of two and a half feet tall and said, "Master Draco is telling Blinkers to warn Mistress Hermione that young Master and Mistress is eating with Master Malfoy today," he announced, managing to work a disapproving note into his formal monotone.

She turned cold, and wished she had taken the time to look for more clothes. Tugging the neckline of the robe closed awkwardly, she tried to smile down at Blinkers. "Thank you. I suppose that means I'm allowed in, then?"

Blinkers' large, hazel eyes roamed over Hermione, pausing just below the knot of her robe. "Blinkers does not think this is wise," he muttered to himself, bowing low and opening the door for her. "Especially not with Mistress Hermione in her condition. Master Malfoy has never been nice to other people, oh, no, but Blinkers cannot be saying this in front of Master Draco. Very angry Master Malfoy would be if he found out…"

Swallowing hard, Hermione walked into the kitchen with her head high, and smiled uncertainly at the two men at table.

Lucius looked horridly out of place in Draco's kitchen. The one room Hermione hadn't seen last night was full of angles and smooth surfaces, polished knobs and stainless steel. The elves ran the kitchen impeccably. Draco had changed into a pair of powder blue pajamas, and his hair was still mussed from bed. He glanced up as she entered, and she read the tension on his face, in his grip on his coffee mug. Meanwhile, Lucius sat, resplendent in his work robes, sprawled elegantly over a Spartan kitchen chair, wearing a wide grin.

"Mrs. Malfoy. How nice of you to join us."

Quietly, she took her seat beside Draco and looked down at the blonde wood tabletop. "My Lord," she said flatly. "To what do we owe the pleasure of your visit?"

Draco pushed a coffee mug toward her gently.

"Is that safe?" Lucius asked mildly. "I thought there was something in the papers from the Healer about avoiding caffeine right now."

She could feel Draco watching her through dark eyes, and Lucius was sitting in front of her, maddeningly casual, smirking at her. Her heart was jumping in her ribcage, and anxiety twisted in her gut. Good morning, Hermione. She didn't touch the coffee.

"Father, we weren't expecting to see you so soon," Draco said tightly, waving his wand and turning the coffee to tea. "Don't you have work today?"

"Oh, I do." Lucius reached out for one of the croissants that one of the house elves had left out, and broke off the crumbling end. "I just wanted to stop in to make sure that everything went smoothly last night."

"We're fine." Draco didn't drop his wand; he twirled it quickly between rigid fingers. "Honestly, it was just one night. One might think you had separation anxiety."

"Am I not allowed to be concerned for my grandson?" Lucius raised an eyebrow at Hermione.

"Grandchild," she said quietly.

"I'm sorry?"

She forced her head up to meet his eyes. _Draco's here. I'm not Lucius' anymore. _"I didn't test for the gender. It could very well be a girl."

To everyone's surprise, he chuckled. "Hermione, it will be a boy. It's a Malfoy baby."

She sneered slightly and stirred a lump of sugar into her tea.

"I trust you found the sleeping arrangements satisfactory last night?"

A muscle in Draco's jaw twitched. "We did everything that the Dark Lord asked of us last night, Father. I do wish you would stop prying."

His anger was met by a snicker. "One would think you were ungrateful, Draco."

Hermione worried at her lip, spinning the spoon absently on the table. She couldn't tell if this was better or worse than an awkward morning-after spent alone. If they were alone, they'd at least have privacy. The tension in the room was suffocating – even worse than last night's dinner.

"Hermione?" Lucius said sharply.

She looked at him questioningly.

"I asked if you were feeling quite well. You are still taking all the right potions, correct?"

"I'm fine. It's been what, a full twenty-four hours?"

"Really? From the both of you." He sighed heavily. "One would almost think I weren't welcome here. But I know that isn't the case, right Draco?" He smiled warmly at his stonily silent son and turned back to Hermione. "You have to understand, being a grandfather for the first time is an exciting thing. I can't help wanting to keep a closer eye on things."

Was it because it was his own baby? Would he have acted like this if it were anyone else?

"I'm sorry your mother isn't here, Draco. She so wanted to be a grandmother."

Draco was so stiff beside her that Hermione wondered if she could snap off pieces of him. Pain flashed in his eyes before he smoothed his face into an emotionless mask. "I'm sure that Mother wouldn't have approved of you cheating on her, Father," he said thickly. "Perhaps it's better that she wasn't there to see that."

Lucius' mouth curled into a vicious smile, and Hermione huffed impatiently. "What is this? An insult contest? Saying nasty things isn't going to change anything."

They both turned to look at her. She frowned. "Don't you have to go to work or something? That's more productive than this."

The elder made a show of checking his watch. "She's right, Draco. Don't you need to be at the office in fifteen minutes? And still in your pajamas, I see. Tsk, tsk."

"And leave you alone with Hermione? I think not." Hermione looked at Draco quickly, but he ignored her, staring coldly at his father. "May I see you to the door? Perhaps it would be better to come back some time when we're dressed and awake."

"How about a deal? You go up and get dressed and I'll meet you going out. I'm sure that Mrs. Malfoy would be more than happy to show me to your front hall herself."

Draco shot his father a withering look, but obviously could say nothing to that. Of course not. Lucius still had him wrapped around his finger, evil bastard that he was. Draco shoved away from the table, the legs of his chair grating painfully on the floor. He stalked away without looking back at them.

A long silence fell over Hermione and Lucius. She reached for a croissant, and pushed the plate toward her, smiling. "It's good to see you eating again."

She split it down the middle and buttered it, wordlessly.

"I hope that you find Draco satisfactory. You know I only want the best for you."

She remained silent, feeling almost like she was back at Hogwarts and Ron was trying to apologize to her after he'd fucked up big time. Her heart twinged a little.

"You could still look at me when I speak to you, Hermione."

She looked up. "I'm sorry?"

"It's generally customary for new brides to respect their in-laws."

She let herself sneer lightly, tried to keep from showing the way her heart was in her mouth. "I'm not scared of you anymore." Lie. "I don't know if you think that you still have some sort of claim on me because the baby is yours, but you gave that up when you made me marry Draco."

His lips tightened severely. "Hermione, that may be true under normal societal rules, but let me remind you that we're all living under the Dark Lord's mandate."

She shoved her plate away, her nausea having nothing to do with pregnancy. "Yeah, Voldemort's regime. Not the Malfoy Regime."

A pause. She wondered if she'd gone too far, but he was just looking at her speculatively. She drew the robe tighter around her and set her chin, but had to look down when his eyes met hers.

"I thought so," he said softly. "Why are you still trying to fight this?"

"My Lord –"

"Father."

"What?"

"Father. I think it's traditional to call your father in-law Father. Go ahead, dear."

"Father." _You killed my parents, you bastard._ "While the thought is appreciated, I'm sure that Draco and I don't need constant babysitters. We're all adults, are we not? Let's not play… games."

"I am sad that you so distrust me. Do you really think I would do something to hurt my child?" Lucius raised a hand, as if to reach out for her. She slipped her hands onto her lap under the table and scooted her chair back a fraction.

They just stared at each other for a moment, and then Lucius sighed. "I won't pretend this wasn't an enlightening breakfast."

"I'm glad you found us entertaining." Hermione stood as he did, and she offered a small, tight smile. "_Father_, may I show you to the door?"

"With pleasure." He took her arm, and she winced slightly. They made their way out of the kitchen almost too slowly, and Hermione wondered if he was making a show of being attentive.

Draco came back down stairs, fully dressed now, in what seemed to be the start of a permanently bad mood. His scowl did not lighten when he saw the way his father stood too close to Granger in the foyer, and how she was looking back up at him with a pale face and widened eyes.

He should have words. With both of them. "Can't you keep a grip on yourself?" he sneered, brushing past his father and curling his hand around the doorknob. The protective charms on the door melted under his touch and he turned the handle.

Lucius looked at Hermione for a long time before nodding curtly and turning around. "I'm sure we'll be seeing each other soon," he said, more a threat than a promise. "Take care of yourself, please."

Though Hermione's eyes were hard and her chin was high, she did not meet Lucius' eyes directly. "Of course."

Draco took a deep breath through his nose. "Hermione, I'll be home around dinner time, if that doesn't bother you." He hadn't thought about what she would do all day. What did she like doing? Reading? "You can, er, help yourself to the library."

For some reason, annoyance flittered across her face, but she nodded. "I'll see you then."

He walked outside into the bright, streaming sunlight, and was glad to be away from the awkwardness. Then his father matched step with him, and he felt the tension snap back around them as quickly as it had gone.

"What did you do?" he hissed.

Lucius just raised a perfectly sculpted eyebrow. "What did I do?"

He had the overwhelming urge to punch something. "What did you do to Granger, Father? She hates you."

His father had the nerve to smile. "I don't think Hermione hates me. We have a special arrangement. I didn't do anything to harm her. I just made sure that she was put into her place."

Draco growled wordlessly, not even sure why he was so angry. All he knew was that Hermione's muted, midnight sniffles were still ringing in his ears and that the bastard in front of them caused that.

"Relax, Draco. She's just the Mudblood."

His mother had been incredibly strong, he thought, to have dealt with his father for so long. Supposedly, she'd loved him, but that barely made things any better. Draco tried to keep his head up, like Narcissa, and look back at him coolly. Severus would have approved.

"I'm sure she would love hearing that, from you of all people?"

"From me?" Lucius said, with maddening innocence.

_It's called emotional trauma, you bastard. You got her pregnant; you have a natural bond with her that no one else does, and she hates you. _Draco resisted the childish urge to throw a temper tantrum, and satisfied himself with pulling his cloak straight and smiling thinly before they would have to part ways.

"I expect I'll be seeing you sooner or later."

He nodded tersely. _Later would be better._ "Until then." He turned into the blissful darkness, the squeezing, the pressure that held him together and pushed him back into form. He was gasping for breath when he rematerialized in the front hall of his office, but he felt reassuringly solid.

He swore when he recognized Severus' owl on the coat rack, looking at him sternly through eyes that were just as judgmental as those of his master. He held out his arm obligingly and Prince fluttered down to perch on his forearm. He closed them into his office before letting the bird flap across the room to the desk and drop his envelope self-righteously. You'd think that Severus Snape, the master of disguise and tact, would have more sense than to send a public owl to a traceable place. It must have been pretty damn important.

Draco sighed and picked up the envelope, frowning down at his name in Severus' clean, black lettering. It was looking already to be a long day.

***

Hermione stood dumbly in the hallway for a long moment after the door closed between the two Malfoy men. She fingered the neckline of her dressing gown and looked at the smooth oak wood blankly.

The silence was too loud. Lucius had, of course, left her behind at the Manor many times, but this was different. She was in a strange place. She didn't know the library, or the house elves, or the rules of Draco's home. And there was no Bellatrix, crooning into her ear and breathing her hot breath down her neck.

Irrational loneliness welled up and choked her. She wasn't actually pining over Bellatrix and Lucius, was she? Or Draco? No, that was wrong. It must have been Harry and Ron.

If she wasn't careful, she might lose it in Draco's – her – front hall. She took a deep breath and looked around her. He was a simple decorator. It was a nice change from the oppressive ornamentation, but in the bareness of the walls, there was an empty sort of melancholy. She wanted pictures on those walls, or maybe a new bookshelf.

A house elf she hadn't seen yet approached her timidly, his eyes on the bare wood floors and his head bent slightly. She pursed her lips and waited for him. Experiences with Lucius' elves had taught her not to reprimand them for their submissive behavior. It only made them more depressed.

"Mistress Hermione," he said, in a high, breathy voice. He bowed so low that his crooked nose brushed the floor. She sighed and pulled her hair back over her shoulder, waiting.

"The post owl is just coming, and Tumblers is wanting to know if Mistress Hermione is interested in _The Daily Prophet_. Usually it is Master Draco who is sitting down every morning with the paper, but he left us too early this morning even for Tumblers to see that he had a proper breakfast." Tumblers shook his head ruefully and looked up at Hermione with curious eyes. "Should I be sending the post away today, Mistress Hermione, or is you going to be reading it?"

_The Daily Prophet_. News. She closed her eyes and concentrating on breathing until she was sure that she would seem cool and collected when she looked back down at the elf. Trying to imagine herself in Draco's shoes, she smiled coldly. "Please send _The Prophet_ up into Draco and my room. I will read it once I am cleaned up and dressed."

Their room? He hadn't pointed out a spare guest room on the tour last night. Her heart sank. If Draco expected every night to be like last…

Tumblers bowed low again, and the hurried back into the kitchen. Hermione stood in the hall for another half moment, pulling herself together, and then turned for the stairs.

The shower that she took that morning was longer and hotter than any she'd had the time to – or had cared to – take in a long time. She let the water beat down on her relentlessly, refreshingly forceful and cleansing, like she could wash away the memories of the Manor the way she washed off the sweat and exhaustion of the previous night. She scrubbed at her skin like she could scrub off the invisible marks of their fingers, Lucius' and Draco's, clinging to her too tightly and leaving the worst kinds of imprints behind.

When she stepped out into the fluffy white towel, she felt for once almost clean. This could be a fresh start. Maybe. She wasn't at the Manor anymore, and Draco seemed almost as reluctant about this whole ordeal as she was.

She dressed quickly and, when she turned back to the bed, her knees were weak and a mess of nerves was knotting itself in the pit of her stomach. _The Prophet_ sat smartly on the neatly made bed, still folded and creased in tidy lines, its text fresh and unread. She sank down onto the bed beside it, the weight of her body wrinkling the pressed sheets.

The hand she stretched out was hesitant and trembling.

Lucius had, for _obvious_ reasons, denied her any access to outside news. If he even received _The Prophet_, he hid it away from her as soon as he was done combing through it to make sure the censors he put into place were still strong. She knew that any news she would read would be horribly biased and less reliable than the articles Rita Skeeter had written that year. But it was _news_ all the same.

Draco hadn't specifically forbidden her from reading the paper. If he didn't want her to, his house elves wouldn't be offering it to her. But maybe he'd forgotten. It had been rather sudden – he might not have thought of everything. But if he hadn't actually forbidden it… And he'd promised, last night, that he wouldn't hurt her.

So even if he _did_ get angry…

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, reaching out blindly. She half-expected something horrible to happen as soon as her fingers came in contact with the paper, but all she heard was the quiet rustle of pages. Opening her eyes and feeling ridiculous, she crossed her legs and settled in to read.

***

Draco was surprised, upon coming home too late again, to find that there were lights in his bedroom window and in half the rooms downstairs. Somebody's dark silhouette moved behind the curtain of the sitting room, and he tried very hard not to bash his head on the tree across the sidewalk from the house. After the day he'd had, the last thing he wanted to do was come home to an occupied house – _his_ house, for God's sake. He imagined coming home to dinner with Granger every night and groaned. God, no. It was going to be like that, wasn't it?

He climbed the steps warily and made too much noise fumbling with the key in the lock to alert her to his presence. He dropped his cloak and bag carelessly in the hall, knowing that one of the house elves would tend to them, and hesitated outside the sitting room. He heard the crackle of the fire again, and the gentle brush of turning pages. She wasn't coming to him, chattering incessantly, forcing him into her company. Sighing, he slipped inside and sat on the couch opposite her.

She set aside her book when he came in, and tucked her feet up under her on the chair.

It felt good just to sit down, though he could feel her eyes trained on him patiently and distractingly. Severus' latest letter was burning a hole in his pocket, and eating away guiltily at the tiny part of his heart that wanted him to have a conscience. He closed his eyes and leaned his head back into the chair.

"Long day?" she said eventually.

He cracked his eyes open very slightly. She still sat on her feet but she wasn't looking at him. She bit her lip and traced patterns on the cover of her book with the tip of her finger. She seemed bored. Distracted.

"You could say that."

She just nodded. Now that she'd started, he almost wished that she would keep talking, but she didn't seem to want to. She kept her eyes down, which bothered him.

"Erm." The fire was warm and soothing. It only made him more exhausted. "Have you eaten yet?"

She shrugged, not looking up from the patterns her fingers traced. He remembered the way those fingers had played across his body in the soft, dimmed light of his room, and had to force himself to pay attention to her words.

"Lunch, but that was a while ago."

He nodded and licked his lips, which were dry. "I'm going to go see if I can find something to eat – if you want to join me?"

She slid her feet to the floor and stood, looking at him expectantly. He stood too, and the coziness of the fire made him feel slightly off balance.

Blinkers had hot soup waiting for them on the table, and they sat quietly. She waited to eat until he sipped his first spoonful. That would have pleased him if he didn't know Luicus and Bellatrix had taught her that. It was in fact her place – pureblood respect – but it was so _them_.

"What did you do all day?" he asked finally, when his spoon scraped the bottom of the bowl.

She froze for a half second before shrugging. "Nothing much. I explored the library a bit."

"I hope you found it satisfactory."

A quick nod. Her eyes were tight on his face again.

"Did you get the paper from Tumblers?" he said conversationally. "I forgot to tell him to run it by you if it came when I was gone. I know _The Prophet_ is a little inconsistent these days, but it's better than nothing. There was a dreadful article today about McGonagall's scandalous love life with Professor Flitwick. You'd think it was _The Quibbler _these days."

The look of absolute shock on her face confused him. "What?"

"You don't mind if I read the paper?" she asked haltingly.

"Why would I mind if you read the paper?"

There was still hesitancy and anxiety in the corners of her eyes and the little lines of tension around her mouth. "Your father…"

_Getting angry right now would be counterproductive, Draco_. "You're not with my father anymore," he snapped. "Stop acting like I'm him, will you please?"

If he didn't know better, he would say that she was fighting a smile. "I would love to, Draco, but it'll take a little adjustment, and…"

"I know." He ran a distressed hand through his hair. "Just try not to dwell on it, okay?"

She seemed a little taken aback. "You don't have to get snappy about it."

"I'm not snappy," he growled. "Just had a long day, okay? Go ahead. Read the fucking _Prophet_ all you want. It's not like you'll hear anything worth knowing in that rag."

He could see it in the set of her shoulders, the widening of her eyes. His mother had taught him all about how to read body language when she was so concerned for him, so afraid to see him surrounded by Death Eaters and under the iron fist of his father. Hermione wanted to flinch away from him, but she stayed straight. He almost smiled. He probably would have, if he weren't so irritated.

"Thank you," she said quietly.

The only thing he could do, really, was sneer at her and push aside his bowl so that Blinkers could give him his meat.

Hermione watched Draco carefully through the rest of dinner, wanting to be forewarned when he snapped on her next. She tried to keep her mouth shut as much as possible. It would be too easy, she knew, to bring up Lucius on accident, and Draco clearly didn't like hearing about his father. She could handle not talking about him. It would just take a little practice. She hated having to watch everything she said. It put her constantly on edge.

Fortunately, Draco didn't seem in any particular mood to chat. That made everything a lot easier.

Finally, he pushed his chair away from the table and stood. "Look, Gr…" He closed his eyes and grimaced. "Hermione. I'm beat. I'm going to bed. Come up when you want to, okay? Just god help you if you wake me up when you come in."

She nodded haltingly, and he walked away without another word. She wondered if he knew his shoulders were set so defensively, or that his back was so rigid. There was no way he was actually that tired, if he was still so alert. He probably just wanted to get away from her.

She sighed and made to clear her plate, but Becky the house elf scolded her gently and shoed her out of the kitchen with a cup of hot tea and best wishes for a good night, Mistress Hermione. She frowned just the tiniest bit at that, but if Becky noticed, she didn't think it was her place to point it out. Stupid purebloods, brainwashing the house elves…

She went back to her book, but magical Parisian horticulture could only interest her for so long. Her mind kept floating back to her conversation with Draco, and to what she'd read in _The Prophet_ earlier on.

It was the same load of waffle it had been before, and unlike last time she wasn't sure that there was anything hidden behind all the chatter. One would think there was a limit to the number of articles that one paper could publish about blood supremacy and the mudblood disease, but there was no escaping it. The whole paper had Lucius' guidance written all over it. She knew what _his_ administration was spending their time doing. It made her wonder who, really, was in charge. If Lucius was concerning himself with such petty tasks as the local paper…

She'd almost had a heart attack when she came across Ron's name in the back of the paper, but it had barely been anything. Just a notification that he was a dangerous wizard still at large, and that any witches or wizards with knowledge of his whereabouts should contact the Ministry immediately. Nothing about Harry, which was irritating at the same time as it was comforting and nerve-wracking.

There had been a tiny blurb hidden on the commentary page about Order members in America, and how their efforts had been more concentrated but less impressive in the past few weeks. Neville, Luna, Ginny. She hoped they were doing okay.

Draco probably didn't realize it, but he'd given her both a blessing and a curse in granting her access to the news. At least she would be moderately informed now, for even in every rumor that Lucius made the paper print there was at least a small basis in truth. She could guess what was real and what was not more often than not. But there was always the off chance that the Ministry was leaking false information, that Harry and Ron had been captured, that… She didn't even want to think. And now, if she could see the paper every day, she'd have to unfold it every day, both longing for and fearing the moment that their names would show up.

She would worry about it every morning before the paper came. Her hands would tremble as she unfolded it, like they had today, both eager and terrified to read the names, the news. She would have to worry, every day, that she would wake up the news that the two people who mattered most were captured, or hurt, or… _dead_.

When the fire had died down to glowing embers and she sat alone in the dark, she had to admit even to herself that she'd been putting this moment off for as long as possible, not wanting at all to have to crawl into bed with Draco Malfoy for the second of a lifetime of nights. She hauled herself reluctantly up the stairs, and paused outside their room.

There were no noises coming from behind the closed door, so she creaked it open just wide enough for her to slip through. He was lying curled into a little knot on his side of the bed, as close to the edge as he could get without falling off. She understood.

She found real pajamas in the drawer where that day's clothes had been, and now she got them out and started unbuttoning her jeans. Her heart almost stopped when she heard Draco shift slightly in bed. His breathing hitched a knot, but she didn't dare turn around and look at him. She slid the jeans slowly down her hips, and the bed jostled again, almost unnoticeably. Now, the rhythms of his breathing were too fast, too irregular for her to believe that he was genuinely asleep.

She hurried into her pajamas, constantly terrified that he would try to say something to alert her to the fact that he was awake. He didn't say anything, so she pretended like she didn't notice. But as she stood in front of the mirror and looked at the reflection of the room, she saw the moonlight shining in his half-opened eyes.

She slid into bed as carefully as she could, and she, too, scooted to the most distant edge of her side. He scooted ever slightly closer to his own edge, and each of them was hyperaware of the other in the darkness. Hermione closed her eyes rather than staring up at the ceiling and did her very best to pretend that Draco wasn't there, his body almost three feet away, so stiff under the covers that she could practically feel him from where she lay.

They each tried to slow their breathing, but it was a very long time until either of them dropped all the way into sleep. They stayed as far apart as the bed would allow, and did not utter a single word between them.

* * *

**Thanks to all the lovely people. Sorry that this is the unbetaed version. I'm notoriously impatient and this chapter took long enough to get out. If your weeks at school have been half as miserable as mine, you need some five thousand words of distraction, as slow and filler as this chapter may be. Who am I to deny you that? Any faults of spelling/grammar/consistency are my own. I also warn you that the next one or two chapters will be very much in the same line as this one, although they will grow quickly in interest. Hermione's not enjoying this - why make it any easier for you to read through? I'll tell you, it's not a treat to write, either. :)  
**

**Chapter dedicated to my darling Evans, and, of course, to Emily, the two people who help me keep going.**

**If anyone is interested in doing some in-depth plot dissection and has the time to write quick turn-around messages, could you please PM me? This story is struggling to get out of my hands right now, and a little help pinning it down would be lovely. **

**Again, roughly two week rule. Thanks for your patience/support/fabulousness.**


	12. The Hardest Words To Say

**Here comes the dreaded A/N, ready to suck your souls (and mine)**

I am really sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but Fallen From Grace is moving to a new home. Due to personal reasons, I feel that it would be more prudent for me to post FfG under a different name. I will still be using EdwardsLily to post oneshots and the new fic that I'm working on right now. Shhh. It's a secret. Fallen From Grace can now be found under the URL www . fanfiction .net/~filledecriture or, for those of you who are lazy, www . fanfiction .net/s/5420119/1/

Also please note that due to the posting delay the story might not be appearing for the next few hours. I assure you that it IS in fact up and ask you to please check again shortly.

Thanks for understanding. FfG will be up here probably for the next week to allow you all to change your alerts/subscriptions. I also apologize for not having a new chapter up. Life is just _too_ crazy right now. I may be dying. And I have writer's block. And NaNoWriMo is way too soon. I'm doing the best I can. I promise.


	13. Snapshots Part 1 Circles

**Chapter Ten - Snapshots**

**Part 1 - Circles  
**

"Hermione?"

She turned, startled to see him standing in the bedroom door. "M – Draco. What are you doing here?" He wasn't due back for another four hours.

He shrugged out of his work robes like he hadn't heard the question. "What are you up to?"

She looked down and realized she had stuffed the book half under her pillow. "Um. Bellatrix was here earlier. She dropped this off."

He came over to sit beside her in his jeans, which was an odd image, taking the book out of her hands.

"What is it?"

"Paint chips. For the… nursery." He wasn't looking at her, but she watched him closely, mystified. It was the middle of the day. A workday. "Shouldn't you be at the Ministry?"

Draco frowned, turning a page absently. "Bellatrix was here?"

"She… stopped in for lunch." And a few well-timed threats, but that was barely relevant.

He looked up at her, almost with concern. "Do I need to have words with her?"

"No." Please. She was more than used to handling Bellatrix on her own.

Draco turned another page and frowned down at a hot pink chip. "Isn't it… er… a little early to be planning the nursery?" He frowned down at the pink before turning the page quickly. "I mean. Seven and a half months."

Hermione pulled her knees up to her chest and rested her chin on them. "I think Bellatrix is bored. She doesn't know what to do with her time now that I'm not – there." She almost said "now that I'm not her pincushion." Draco didn't appreciate hearing stories of her treatment at the Manor, and he made her uncomfortable enough when he _wasn't_ angry.

He stared at her thoughtfully for a moment before giving her back the book and stretching out across the bed. The silence was uncomfortable for a moment, and then, "I suppose I'll leave that sort of thing to you, won't I?"

"If you want to." She ran her finger over the comforter. "No suggestions?" _No imposed Slytherin color schemes? That does seem to be the norm in your family._

"Not particularly."

"What was…?" Why was she asking him this? She cleared her throat. "What was your nursery like as a child? I imagine it was quite grand for the Manor, wasn't it?"

"Hardly." And suddenly he didn't look at her either, but watched his hands as they clenched into tight fists, knuckles white. "I suppose it was, of course. But I've never been partial to my father's decorating tastes."

"Oh."

He closed his eyes and said nothing for another few moments, then grimaced. "My father didn't really raise me."

"I… sort of imagined that much." Hermione tightened her grip on her knees and bit her lip, wondering.

"My mother didn't, either." He too, wondered. Wondered why he lay in bed with the Mudblood talking about this. Something about the way she was looking at him made him relax too much. It was frightening. He was used to hatred. Not… compassion. Maybe it was a woman thing.

"Who did, then?" Hermione said flatly.

"My mother did her best. There was a part of her that really cared, I think. But it must have been hard for her, living with my father all that time."

A rather unladylike snort. "I imagine."

Draco permitted himself to grin slightly, even though there was nothing remotely funny. "He hired governesses for me until I was about four, and then he just gave up."

"I –' She didn't really have an answer for that. It was a picture she could see quite clearly, as little as she liked it. A four-year-old Malfoy, blond and probably ridiculously cherubic, lost and alone in the vastness of The Manor. What would he have done? Spent his days reading through ancient texts or something? If he had a governess, it wouldn't have surprised her to know that he was reading at such a tender age. "I'm sorry."

His eyes finally opened, and he frowned up at her. "Why?"

"You think that's… right?"

"That's my father."

"That doesn't make it right."

The silence that settled between them was long and uncomfortable. She wanted to say something. Anything. Something more than "sorry," because sorry didn't cut it. But there wasn't much _to_ say, especially not to Draco Malfoy. Instead, she concentrated on breathing evenly. That _wasn't_ how she would let her child be raised.

If she was allowed to raise her child.

"Are you crying?"

"No."

Draco propped himself into a more upright position. "Granger, you're crying. I'm touched. Is this all for me?"

She lifted a hand to her cheek and was surprised to feel the dampness. "It's nothing, _Malfoy_. Just…"

"Just?"

Just leave me alone. Let me go home. "Nothing." She hid her face in her knees and sighed shakily. "It's just hormones." There was an excuse that worked on boys, without fail. And it wasn't even a lie. Probably.

"Hormones my arse." She froze when she felt a hand tangling in her hair, smoothing out her curls.

"What are you doing here Malfoy?"

"I got the afternoon off." He snagged her brush from the bedside table and began to work slowly through the knots. "Figured I might as well come home and get some rest before" – His hand stilled.

She barely found the energy to wonder. "Before?"

"Nothing."

Saying that it had been a long two weeks would have been an understatement. They'd been moving around each other in awkward circles. Dodging, avoiding, but just barely. They always wound up bumping into each other again, stumbling over each other. It was only expected, really, that two people living under the same roof couldn't stay apart for too long.

It was horribly, painfully tense. They really did… _try_ to stay as far away from each other as possible. But there were moments. Like these ones…

Hermione gritted her teeth together and tried to focus on the steady rhythm of the brush in her hair, and not on the man attached to it.

Each day, it seemed, went slower than the previous as the novelty of being in a new place with a new Malfoy wore off. Time froze and no longer took a meaning as they settled into the robotic gestures of a new routine.

By that point, they were used to each other. It no longer bothered her that he slept on the left side of the bed – she'd always, _always_ taken the left side – or that he didn't ball his socks. He stopped trying to lace every sentence with hidden insults and seemed less bothered by her inconsistent eating habits. But with habituation comes irritation. She noticed the odd way he held his fork when he ate, and he'd started griping about how she left books sitting out half-read instead of putting them back on the shelves.

And with routine comes monotony. Draco worked long, hard hours, and while Hermione hadn't been strictly forbidden to leave the house, she didn't want to risk it and ask. She wanted to launch herself into his library and see, maybe, if he had something on Horcruxes, or on Dark Magic, or on something that would make her feel like she was doing something useful. Unfortunately, she still wasn't feeling quite in top condition, so she spent much of her time lying down and feeling ridiculous. She'd never been one for putting her feet up when there was work to be done.

Their efforts at conversation were limited, although each of them _was_ trying. A little bit. Only because it was so horribly, painfully awkward, though. And they never talked about the baby. Rarely about Lucius. Never about the future. Questions didn't extend much past, "Hi. How was your day?"

"What are you thinking about so hard?" Draco said quietly, putting the brush back down and running his hand one last time through her hair before settling back down onto the bed.

She shook her head. "It's nothing."

He looked like he wanted to say something, but didn't.

It was like that. It was always like that. The things that went unsaid would make it impossible to move forward. Ever. She was sure of it.

* * *

**A/N: What was supposed to be Chapter Ten will instead be published in a series of snapshots. These snapshots will cover Hermione and Draco's first month of married life together. Time will jump in unpredictable quantities and I ask you to bear with me. This is the only way I canthink of getting the chapter out with relative speed, and to convince you all that I'm not dead. I'm not… technically.**

**Also, I apologize for any confusion with the username switch. I will continue the snapshots under both names to give you all the time to transfer your alerts, and then will start chapter eleven only under filledecriture.**

**Yours, Lily  
**


	14. Snapshots Part 2 Nighttime

**A/N: What was supposed to be Chapter Ten will instead be published in a series of snapshots. These snapshots will cover Hermione and Draco's first month of married life together. Time will jump in unpredictable quantities and I ask you to bear with me. This is the only way I can think of getting the chapter out with relative speed, and to convince you all that I'm not dead. I'm not… technically.

* * *

**

SNAPSHOT TWO – Nighttime

"Fuck!"

A sudden movement beside her woke her. Hermione's eyes fluttered open slightly and she saw Draco sitting up in bed, his arm cradled to his chest.

"Malfoy?" she said blearily, squinting as the light from the lamp he switched on scorched her eyeballs. "You okay?"

"Yeah." He stumbled out of bed and tripped around in the dim light, groping for his shoes. He held his arm at an odd angle, pressed against his torso tightly. "Go back to bed."

"What's wrong?" She propped herself up on her elbow and frowned. Shoes, at this hour?

"Nothing's wrong." He dragged on his cloak, which he'd left hanging on the open closet door before bed, instead of putting away as usual. "Go back to bed."

"Where are you going?"

He looked at her, his face pale in the lamplight. "Nowhere. It's nothing to do with you."

"What's wrong with your arm?"

His eyes flashed; his jaw clenched tight. "Are you always such a pain in the arse, Granger, or is it just because it's two in the morning?"

"Malfoy, I –"

"You should shut up now. I'll be back later."

She saw the silver mask flash under the folds of his cloak, and understood. She felt cold. "Draco, you can't…"

"Can't what?" He looked away quickly, straightening his hood in the mirror rather than look at her.

"I…" She had no good excuse. Not really. "It's totally unreasonable. It's two in the morning."

"Goodbye." He wrenched the door open and slammed it shut behind him. The hall was silent for a moment. She expected to hear footsteps.

Then a beam of golden light slid through the keyhole and wound around the doorknob, splicing and layering until it formed a net of light that covered the whole door. The blinds on the windows all shuddered down and locked in place. The whole house shook for a moment, and then, finally, from the hall came the sharp _crack_ of Disapperation.

Hermione didn't sleep that night. She didn't move from her spot in the bed, not even to turn out Draco's night lamp. She sat upright in bed, frozen, unable to move. Staring at the protection seal on the door. Her eyes, following the hands of the clock. Each second dragged, and made her jumpier. Her heart didn't move back down from its spot in her throat, where it beat too quickly.

Somewhere around six thirty, she heard the front door unlock downstairs. The blinds slithered back open to let cracks of dawn filter into the room and the ward on the door melted away where the thin sunlight touched them. Draco's feet sounded uneven on the stairs. Hermione lay down quickly and closed her eyes, trying to breathe more slowly.

He paused outside the door, and for a moment, she thought he wouldn't come in. Then the handle turned slowly, and he stood in the doorway for a long moment. She felt his eyes on her. She concentrated on breathing.

Draco let out a long, shaky breath and almost limped into the room. He let his cloak drop to the floor, and then ended up stepping on it as he kicked off his shoes. Giving a little start, he closed the door gently, and then turned back to face his little pile of clothes on the floor, running a pale hand through his hair, which was stark white in the weak light. He had soot smeared on his bone-pale cheek, and the sleeve of his shirt was torn.

She thought for a moment about getting up and going to him, but when he turned just so the light that fell across his face showed that his eyes were wild, his jaw taut and tense. She certainly wasn't going to go running to someone who looked so… haunted.

He slipped his nightshirt over his head, and then fell heavily into the bed. An unfamiliar arm snaked around her waist and pulled her into his chest. She was surprised by how solid and strong his arm was… He pressed his face into her hair and breathed deeply. He was shaking.

Every line of Draco's body was hard and tense. He smelled faintly smoke that she was sure wasn't from a campfire. He kept his arm tight around her until he started drifting off to sleep, when he relaxed and curled instinctively into her.

She somehow managed to fall asleep around seven in the morning, by which time her head was throbbing with fatigue and she had almost gotten used to the feeling of Draco's hot breath in her ear.

When she woke, Hermione woke again in an empty bed.

* * *

**I apologize profusely for the length. It's been an absolutely crazy two weeks. Fortunately for you (and for me!!) by some fluke the French school system gives me ten days off at the end of October. For no apparent reason. So, I'm going to be trying to write a LOT these ten days. And you will thank me for it because afterward I have NaNoWriMo and, I'm sorry, I probably won't update for the entire month of November. Maybe another post tonight. Or tomorrow. We'll see. Also, mostly because I'm impatient, any errors are mine. I have made the executive decision not to beta the Snapshots. I apologize, and still give a huge shout out to Magdalene and Hilary, who are pretty fab. **


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